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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY          H 
sr=  OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OB 

California  State  Library 


Class 


.Six  OF  ONE 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE 
OTHER. 

AN  EVERT  DAT  NOVEL. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE, 

ADELINE  D.  T.  WHITNEY, 

LUCRETIA  P.  HALE, 
FREDERIC  W.  LORING, 

FREDERIC  B.  PERKINS, 

EDWARD  E.  HALE. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS      BROTHERS. 
1872. 


v/ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872,  by 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS  OF  JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 


SIX   PREFACES. 


FIRST    PREFACE. 

THE  history  of  this  composition  is  precisely  told  in 
the  November  number  of   OLD  AND  NEW,  in 
which  it  was  first  announced  to  the  public. 

"What  is  this,"  said  Anna  Haliburton,  "about  a  new 
serial  in  OLD  AND  NEW?  '  Six  of  One  by  Half  a  Dozen  of 
the  Other,'  — is  that  the  name?  " 

The  Editor  of  OLD  AND  NEW  was  not  present;  but 
Colonel  Ingham  answered  for  him,  as,  at  a  pinch,  he  does 
sometimes. 

"  What  you  saw  was  one  of  the  unconscious  prophecies 
which  give  the  world  a  hint  of  its  best  blessings  in  advance." 

"  AVould  it  please  you,  dear  padre,  to  abandon  the  method 
of  the  pulpit  for  a  moment,  and,  in  somewhat  clearer  lan- 
guage, to  tell  us  what  our  chief  does  intend,  in  an  enterprise 
in  which  he  has  not  enlisted  our  endeavors  ?  ' ' 

"  He  has  not  enlisted  you,"  said  Ingham,  "  because,  as  it 
is,  the  Editor  has  enlisted  our  five  best  home  story- writers, 
—  Mr.  McDonald  being,  alas!  too  far  away,  to  unite  their 
forces,  —  and  it  being,  alas!  evident  that  even  in  our  seven- 
teen hundred  annual  pages  we  cannot  print  a  whole  novel 
by  each  of  them,  and  at  the  same  time  take  care  of  all  the 
world  of  literature,  art,  and  religion  beside." 

"  Once  more,"  said  Felix  Carter  again,  "  will  you  please 
to  abandon  the  method  of  the  bar,  and  state  explicitly  what 
the  chief  proposes  ?  ' ' 


h*f'* 


iy  FIRST  PREFACE. 

"  He  proposes  this,"  said  Ingham.  "  It  is  impossible,  as 
I  said  when  I  was  interrupted,  to  print  a  serial  novel  by  Mrs. 
Stowe,  and  one  by  Mr.  Loring,  and  one  by  Mrs.  Whitney, 
and  one  by  Mr.  Perkins,  and  one  by  Miss  Hale,  in  the  same 
volume  which  contains  '  The  Vicar's  Daughter,'  and  '  Ups 
and  Downs.'  The  Editor  sees  this  impossibility,  and  so  do 
the  distinguished  writers  I  have  named.  Yet  the  readers  of 
OLD  AND  NEW  are  to  be  considered  also,  —  considered, 
indeed,  first  of  all.  And  what  has  been  determined  on,  in  a 
high  council  of  these  writers  of  fiction,  is  that  they,  adding 
Mr.  Hale  to  their  number,  shall  unite  in  writing  one  novel, 
which  will  be  a  serial,  and  in  which  our  readers  will  be  able 
to  enjoy  them  all  together.  Wishing  a  name  which  should 
give  an  idea  of  the  method  of  the  book,  the  chief  consulted 
the  Nomenclator;  and  the  Nomenclator  said  the  new  serial 
should  be  called 

'SIX  OF  ONE  BY  HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.'" 

"  And  will  you  tell  us  how  the  plot  is  constructed?  " 
"No;  nor  will  I  tell  you  the  plot.  All  I  know  is,  that  it 
grew,  novel  and  plot,  much  as  I  remember  to  have  seen 
Signer  Blitz's  plates  start  from  the  table  when  he  was  spin- 
ning them.  He  announced  that  he  would  spin  six  earthen 
dinner-plates  at  one  time.  He  began  with  one,  spuming  it 
as  you  spin  a  penny  for  a  child;  when  that  was  well  going, 
he  started  number  two;  and  then,  from  a  side-table  started 
the  third.  If  he  saw  one  faint  and  weary  he  encouraged  it 
by  a  touch  of  his  finger  at  the  point  of  revolution ;  and  when 
these  three  were  happily  gyrating,  like  so  many  interior 
planets,  he  let  loose  in  succession  numbers  four,  five,  and 
six.  I  think  the  chief  started  the  novel  in  much  the  same 
way.  He  spoke  to  Mrs.  Stowe  first,  and  consulted  Mr. 
Loring.  Then  he  went  to  Mrs.  Whitney,  and  sent  a  brief  of 
the  plot  to  Miss  Hale.  The  four  principals  had  what  the 
Friends  call  '  a  solid  sitting ; '  and  in  the  equally  happy 


FIRST  PREFACE.  V 

phrase  of  those  charming  people  they  were  '  baptized  into 
each  other's  spirit.'  They  possessed  themselves  mutually  of 
the  best  plot,  the  best  moral,  the  locale,  and  the  atmosphere 
of  the  story.  They  selected  the  names,  —  actually  changed 
Mary  Yates  into  Rachel  Holley,  after  Mary  had  been  tried 
and  found  wanting.  Meanwhile,  our  philosophical  Devil- 
Puzzling  friend,  Mr.  Perkins,  had  come  cordially  into  the 
combination,  so  that  the  story  is  to  have  the  benefit  of  his 
universal  information,  and,  I  suppose,  of  his  conferences 
with  Apollo  Lyon,  Esq.  Thus  it  is  that  we  are  to  publish 
the  first  chapter  of  '  Six  of  One  '  in  December." 

"  Whose  chapter  is  that?  "  said  everybody,  even  the  slug- 
gish gentlemen  taking  out  their  cigars  for  the  inquiry. 

"  I  have  told  you  that  it  is  everybody's  chapter." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  said  Haliburton,  "that  Mr. 
Hale  locked  all  these  people  up,  as  if  he  were  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  with  the  seventy  translators,  —  that  he  shut 
them  into  five  cells  in  the  attic  of  143  Washington  Street, 
and  himself  retired  into  a  sixth,  and  that  at  the  end  of  six 
months  they  all  came  out,  a  little  haggard,  bearing  six 
manuscripts,  which  on  examination  by  Rand  &  Avery's 
proof-reader,  proved  to  be  identical,  even  to  the  use  of  semi- 
colons instead  of  comma-dashes?  " 

This  was  a  very  long  sentence  for  Haliburton,  or  for  any- 
body. 

Ingham  said  that  he  did  not  mean  so.  But  he  meant  that 
the  high  contracting  powers  had  come  to  no  dead-locks  in 
the  management  of  the  story.  "  The  public  will  undoubt- 
edly know  better  than  the  authors  themselves  do  who  wrote 
what  or  who  contributed  which.  All  I  know  is,  that  we  are 
to  have  the  critical  period  of  the  life  of  Six  of  Them  by  Half 
a  Dozen  of  the  Others." 

The  plan  having  been  once  suggested,  copies  of  the 
following  sketch  of  a  plot  were  submitted  to  each  of 
the  six  contributors :  — 


yi  FIRST  PREFACE. 

SIX    OF    THEM   BY    SIX    OF    US. 
CHAPTERS  I.  AND  II. 

John  Bryant  and  Jane  Gaylord  grew  up  in  District  No.  1 
of  Marston,  went  to  the  same  school,  of  course,  &c.,  &c. 
Henry  Eyre  and  Henrietta  Silva  grew  up  in  District  No.  2, 
&c.,  &c.  Mark  Hinsdale  and  Mary  Yates  grew  up  in 
District  No.  3,  &c.,  &c. 

In  all  dances,  frolics,  sleigh-rides,  &c.,  they  paired  off  as 
above.  The  town  supposed  they  were  mated  for  life. 
Perhaps  they  supposed  so  themselves.  But 

CHAPTERS  HI.  AXD  IV. 

John  Bryant  went  to  Boston, 

Henry  Eyre  to  Norwich,  and 

Mark  Hinsdale  to  New  York  to  try  their  fortunes. 

Henrietta  Silva  went  to  Boston, 

Mary  Yates  to  Norwich,  and 

Jane  Gaylord  to  New  York. 

The  law  of  ' '  propinquities  ' '  affected  them.  The  letter- 
writers  of  Marston  concluded,  perhaps  they  concluded  them- 
selves, that  the  old  cast  of  parts  had  not  been  the  right  one, 
and  that  other  destinies  were  over  them,  mating  them  again 
by  residence;  when 

CHAPTER  V. 

Jane  Gaylord  being  appointed  teacher  in  a  Chicago  School, 
Henrietta  Silva  detained  there  in  travelling,  and  Mary  Yates 
on  a  visit  there,  it  proved 

CHAPTER  VI. 

That  the  fore-ordained  mates  were: 

John  and  Mary. 

Henry  and  Jane. 

Mark  and  Henrietta.     And  so  the  story  ends. 

MKM. — Note  as  an  aide-memoire,  —  that  the  original 
initials  are  J.  and  J.,  H.  and  H.,  M.  and  M. 


FIRST  PREFACE.  vii 

It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  plan  would  ever 
have  gone  further,  but  that  our  dear  friend  Mr.  Frederic 
Wadsworth  Loring,  who  had  enlisted  joyfully  in  the 
scheme,  and  with  fun  ever  new  descanted  on  it,  took  it 
into  his  charge  and  keeping.  No  one  who  talked  with 
him  about  it  could  resist  him.  He  compelled  the 
authors  to  their  duty ;  and  soon  after  he  left  Boston 
for  that  expedition  to  the  Pacific  slope  which  termi- 
nated so  fatally,1  they  had  their  first  "solid  sitting," 
four  out  of  the  remaining  five  being  present. 

The  ladies  protested  against  the  names.  After 
great  canvassing,  they  agreed  on  the  respective  char- 
acters to  be  maintained  by  the  heroes  and  heroines. 
New  names  were  then  selected  .to  match  these  charac- 
ters, and  the  briefs  were  altered  thus :  — 

1.  JEFF  FLEMING,  dashing  fellow,  go  ahead;  begins  with 
JANE    BURGESS,  she  a  pattern.      He  ends  with  RACHEL 

HOLLEY. 

2.  HORACE  VANZANDT,  inventor,  begins  with  HENRIETTA 
SYLVA,  called  NETTIE,  attractive  but  coquettish  ;  but  ends  with 
JANE  BURGESS. 

3.  MARK    HINSDALE,  bookish,  and  given   to    clouds    and 
scenery;  begins  with  RACHEL  HOLLEY,  regular  beauty  and 
good;  ends  with  NETTIE  SYLVA. 

MEM.  —  They  are  to  be  common-place,  not  very  high- 
flying, people. 

On  this  agreement  the  four  selected  their  parts,  Mr. 
Loring's  was  assigned  to  him,  and  absent  author  num- 

1  Mr.  Loring  was  killed  by  a  body  of  outlaws,  supposed  to  be  Apache 
Indians,  on  his  return  toward  San  Francisco,  from  a  summer  of  adven- 
ture with  Lieutenant  Wheeler's  survey. 


viii  SECOND  PREFACE. 

ber  six  took  Hobson's  choice.  It  was  tacitly  agreed 
(by  the  Editor)  that  each  of  the  partners  should  be 
entirely  and  personally  responsible  for  all  the  imagin- 
ings, opinions,  and  statements  of  all  the  other  partners. 

Only  a  part  of  Mr.  Loring's  work  was  finished  by 
him ;  and  the  other  authors  have,  with  a  sad  interest, 
completed  the  unfinished  sketches  received  from  him. 

One  and  another  meeting  has  since  been  held,  and 
the  result  is  before  the  readers,  the  original  name 
having  been  changed  by  the  distinguished  Nomenclator 
of  OLD  AND  NEW  to 

SIX    OF    ONE 
BY   HALF    A    DOZEN    OF    THE    OTHER. 


SECOND  PREFACE. 

UNQUESTIONABLY  the  tap-root  of  American  growth, 
whether  it  be  palmetto  or  pine,  is  of  the  shortest. 
You  transplant  it  very  easily.  And  why  not?  The 
Americans  have  ample  room  and  verge  enough.  Our 
English  friends  may  naturally  think  that  "  home "  is  a 
place  where  the  inmates  stay,  and  twirl  industriously 
round,  like  squirrels  inside  of  their  trundling  tin  domi- 
cile. Not  but  what  the  Englishman  travels  to  every 
part  of  the  world,  and  takes  his  home-comforts  with 
him,  enjoys  his  sponging  bath  on  his  way  to  the  Albert 


SECOND  PREFACE.  ix 

N'yanza,  and  his  ale  in  the  Himalaya.  But  he  always 
finds  it  necessary  to  send  his  children  and  wife  "  home  " 
every  year  or  two,  to  pick  up  the  English  constitution 
in  climate,  and  the  English  "accent"  in  education. 
Our  American  on  the  other  hand,  wandering  over  the 
extent  of  our  great  continent,  has  no  occult  tie  that 
fetches  him  back  to  live  in  the  home  of  his  childhood. 
His  home  is  where  his  business  is,  where  he  can  make 
his  fortune.  He  begins  his  career  a  stern  Northerner, 
with  a  theory  that  life  is  nothing  but  work,  and  by  and 
by  he  turns  up  a  lazy  Southerner,  smoking  his  pipe  all 
day  on  the  open  veranda.  From  a  quiet  country  home, 
he  passes  through  college  life,  breasts  the  passions  of 
one  of  our  great  cities,  then  calms  off  on  a  western 
farm.  But  do  not  think  that  you  have  him  rooted  there. 
If  he  has  a  good  offer  for  his  wheat-fields,  he  has  no 
particular  reason  for  holding  on  to  them,  and  you  may 
see  him  next  in  South  America,  or  setting  up  a  chocolate 
mill  in  New  England. 

Perhaps  toward  the  end  of  life  some  sentiment  leads 
him  to  take  his  grandchildren  to  look  at  his  native 
village.  He  talks  to  them  of  its  quiet,  of  the  old 
homestead  with  broad  roof  sloping  to  the  ground,  with 
the  grass  coming  up  to  the  front  door,  and  a  red  rose- 
bush against  the  old  stone- wall,  and  the  stream  rippling 
behind  the  house.  But,  alas !  at  the  end  of  his  pilgrim- 
age, he  finds  a  row  of  tenements  set  up  across  the  front- 
door yard,  the  old  homestead  is  an  Irish  shanty,  and 
a  grimy  factory  makes  a  hideous  noise  by  the  side 
of  the  "  quiet  stream."  The  old  man  sighs  with  regret ; 


X  THIRD  PREFACE. 

not  for  the  calm  scenes  of  his  youth,  indeed,  "  but "  he 
says,  "  if  I  had  only  held  on  to  the  land,  what  a  fortune 
I  might  have  made ! " 

Yet  is  there  not  a  matter  of  education  in  this  ?  We 
cannot  boast  of  a  strong  American  physical  constitu- 
tion, equal  to  that  of  the  Englishman,  but  in  the 
facility  with  which  the  American  adapts  himself  to  the 
various  climates  and  soils  in  which  he  places  himself, 
does  he  not  gain  a  largeness  of  character,  a  liberality 
of  spirit,  and  freedom  of  soul  ? 

Our  young  American  people  find  out  how  to  centre 
all  their  home  interests  in  any  spot  where  they  live, 
in  country  or  city,  on  the  farm  or  the  plantation. 
When  the  time  comes  in  which  they  must  choose  their 
places  in  life,  they  are  not  detained  by  considering  if  it 
is  within  the  circle  of  their  birthplace.  They  live 
where  their  life  is.  For  them  it  is,  — 

"Six  OF  ONE,  AKD  HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER." 


THIRD  PREFACE. 

A  PIECE  of  a  preface  ?  Very  well ;  with  all  my  heart. 
Though  why  preface,  as  Dickens  would  say,  I  'm  sure 
I  don't  know;  seeing  that  prefaces  are  always  post- 
scripts. 

Are  there  to  be  five  prefaces  ?  or  one,  conglomerate 
like  the  story  of  five  paragraphs?     Shall  we  put  in 


THIRD  PREFACE.  xj 

"  the  wit  of  the  staircase,"  —  the  things  we  might  have 
said  and  didn't?  Shall  we  supplement,  or  explain,  or 
excuse,  or  gently  deprecate,  or  mystify?  And  shall 
we  do  it  all  together,  or  one  at  a  time,  dividing  round 
again?  The  Colonel  has  sent  no  special  orders;  he 
has,  in  fact,  gone  off  the  field,  leaving  his  regiment  to 
manoeuvre  for  itself  in  this  final  charge  upon  the  public, 
in  any  pell-mell  fashion  that  it  may  devise.  But  then 
that  shows  only  the  great  and  merited  confidence  he 
reposes  in  us. 

Well,  the  dear  critics  know  all  the  joints  in  our 
armor :  we  told  them  at  the  outset  where  to  look  for 
them.  To  glance  off  to  a  different  simile  suggested  by 
the  word,  —  the  ribs  of  the  roast  are  all  cracked  before- 
hand :  they  will  be  poor  carvers  if  they  can't  cut  us 
up. 

But  that  is  not  the  metaphor  that  will  carry  me 
through  either. 

There  were  six  balls  to  wind ;  there  were  six  pairs 
of  hands  set  to  do  the  work.  I  will  not  pause  upon 
that  "were;"  this  is  not  the  place,  nor  is  this  light 
preface  in  the  vein,  for  speaking  of  how  we  were  left 
to  be  only  five. 

But  what  wonder  if,  with  one  or  two  ends  of  our 
yarn  out  on  the  Highlands,  one  in  Boston,  one  in 
Cambridge,  and  trailing  off  thence  to  Florida,  and  the 
other  —  where  not?  the  threads  should  get  curiously 
mixed  and  crossed  and  tangled,  not  to  say  broken  in 
the  process  ?  If  we  have  tied  clumsy  weaver's  knots 
anywhere,  —  if  we  have  changed  and  twisted  more  than 


xii  THIRD  PREFACE. 

you  expected  or  than  seemed  reasonable,  —  before  you 
say  hastily,  "That's  what  comes  of  patchwork;  of 
course  it  would  be  a  disjointed,  distracted  medley;" 
look  around  you  at  the  real  live  threads  that  twist  and 
cross  and  snarl  and  break,  and  are  tied  in  the  wrong 
places,  and  coming  unfastened  all  the  time  in  this  per- 
plexed and  jumbled  world,  and  see  if  you  can  trace 
any  one  of  them,  that  you  discern  the  most  of,  further 
on  a  clear,  uncomplicated  line  than  you  can  these  of 
ours? 

I  find  I  have  done  the  "  gentle  deprecation  "  busi- 
ness, though  I  did  not  know  I  should  when  I  began : 
if  I  could,  without  trespassing  on  my  neighbor's  divi- 
sion, I  should  just  say  one  thing  more.  You  need  not 
come  down  upon  us  with  the  conclusion  that  we  have 
not  known  at  all,  from  one  hand  —  or  head  —  to  the 
other,  what  it  was  to  be  about ;  how  drift  and  turn,  or 
how  fall  out.  There,  too,  is  a  deep  moral,  and  a  subtle 
correspondence. 

Somebody  who  set  us  to  work  did  know,  and  it  has 
all  ended  precisely  as  it  was  meant  to  do.  There  has 
been  rough-hewing,  but  there  has  been  shaping  also, 
and  a  clear  intent. 

But  it  is  not  my  province  to  "  explain ; "  I  pass  the 
pen  —  to  whom?  Will  you  take  it,  queen  of  the 
clever  chessmen? 


FOURTH  PREFACE.  xiii 


FOURTH  PREFACE. 

IT  must  of  com*se  be  difficult  for  one  who  thinks 
seriously,  to  put  forth  even  a  story  without  embodying 
some  moral  truth  in  it.  The  thoughts  turn  so  easily 
to  inner  meanings ;  we  ask  ourselves  so  constantly 
what  is  the  real  significance,  the  real  value,  the  real 
importance  of  souls  or  emotions  or  persons  or  things 
or  actions,  —  or  of  the  whole  universe,  —  that  a  story 
which  is  only  a  story  seems  very  unsubstantial.  Thus, 
the  careful  reader  will  not  find  it  difficult  to  analyze 
six  types  of  character  in  the  three  heroes  and  three 
heroines  of  this  book ;  and  if  such  reader  love  mystical 
numbers,  Mrs.  Worboise  will  make  up  the  Semitic  seven. 
Nor  will  it  demand  too  much  meditation  to  unravel 
the  trains  of  thought  and  emotion  which  moved  our 
little  company  of  personages ;  nor  to  detect  the  single 
practical  lesson  which  the  story  teaches,  —  one  so  obvi- 
ous, indeed,  that  it  may  as  well  be  stated  plainly,  for 
it  is  greatly  needed  in  this  dear  country  of  ours.  It  is, 
that  engagements  to  marry  should  not  be  carelessly 
made,  lest  youth  and  love  be  wasted  in  three  when 
one  is  enough.  And  when  they  are  made,  they  should 
be  quickly  ended  by  marriage. 


SIXTH  PREFACE. 


FIFTH  PREFACE. 

THIS  story  offers  six  numbers  by  as  many  different 
authors.     Is  there  nothing  to  choose  between  the  six  ? 

Some  voices  answer,  "Indeed  there  is!"  Already 
the  admirers  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  have  pointed 
out  their  favorite  chapters.  The  enthusiasts  for  Leslie 
Goldthwaite  know  well  their  own,  and  Fred  Ingham 
can  no  longer  humbug  his  readers. 

Six  planned  to  write  these  few  chapters  for  the 
amusement  of  the  public.  But  one  has  been  called  to 
a  higher  destiny,  leaving  behind  some  fragrant  traces 
of  his  memory. 

But  there  are  six  principal  characters.  The  title  of 
the  book  may  have  something  to  do  with  them.  It 
seems  to  have  been  indifferent  which  either  of  them 
chose  to  marry. 

Gentle  public,  decide  it  either  way :  to  us,  it  is 
"Six  OF  ONE  AND  HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER." 


SIXTH  PREFACE. 

THE  original  brief  of  the  plot  of  this  story  was  drawn 
early  in  the  summer  of  1871.  The  "stage  direction" 
was  simply  that  the  parties  should  meet  at  Chicago  in 
the  autumn  of  that  year,  to  find  their  destiny.  Little 


SIXTH  PEE  FACE.  xv 

did  the  innocent  augurs  and  gypsy-women  who  fore- 
told this  fate  for  heroes  and  heroines  know  then  in 
what  tempest  of  fire  that  destiny  would  be  fulfilled. 
Doubtful  as  they  were  —  as  any  augur  must  be  —  of  the 
way  in  which  life  shall  solve  the  mystery  of  life,  all 
that  the  story-tellers  could  do  was  to  let  the  characters 
grow  as  the  conditions  of  their  being  permitted,  —  let 
them  come  and  go  as  these  conditions  directed,  —  and 
leave  the  issue  to  that  decision  which  may  always  be 
trusted,  when  youth,  faithful  and  loyal,  determines  for 
itself  what  is  right,  and  abandons  the  proprieties  and 
etiquettes  suggested  by  Mrs.  Grundy.  To  their  dis- 
may, when  the  9th  of  October  came,  a  conflagration 
such  as  never  will  be  described,  devastated  the  beautiful 
city  which  had  been  chosen  for  the  scene  where  their 
little  story  should  end.  This  conflagration  took  place 
at  the  moment  these  young  people  were  there.  Born 
and  cradled  and  trained  to  do  their  duty,  if  they  could 
find  it,  Jeff  Fleming,  Horace  Vanzandt,  and  Mark 
Hinsdale  did  not  shrink  from  duty  in  the  horrors  of 
that  dreadful  night  and  day,  —  and  Jane  Burgess,  Hen- 
rietta Sylva,  and  Rachel  Holley  were  as  true  to  theirs. 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  duty  well  done,  in  the  catastrophe 
of  unexpected  calamity,  that,  as  the  augurs  and  gypsy- 
women  had  ignorantly  predicted,  the  story  ended,  and 
they  met  their  destiny. 


SIX  OF  ONE 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

r  I  "*HE  snow  was  falling  over  the  roofs  and  houses 
A     of  Greyford,  not  in  great  loose  feathers,  but 
with  that  fine,  steady,  continuous  descent  which 
indicates  a  steady  purpose. 

"  We  are  in  for  it  now,"  said  Dr.  Sylva,  as  he 
drew  on  his  gloves  for  a  long  ride  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. "  Nettie,  here  comes  the  snow  you  've  been 
wanting." 

Nettie's  first  movement  was  in  the  direction  of 
the  window ;  her  second,  after  satisfying  herself 
of  the  state  of  things  out  of  doors,  was  —  shall 
we  tell  the  secret?  —  to  the  looking-glass  that 
hung  over  the  table  in  the  family  keeping-room. 
Her  father  had  gone  out,  and  Nettie  was  alone. 

She  stood  before  it  considering  the  image  therein 
attentively,  and  nodding  to  it  with  a  little  knowing 
twinkle  in  her  eye,  as  if  she  should  say,  There  are 
a  pair  of  us,  and  we  '11  have  it  all  our  own  way 
now. 

l  A 


2  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

We  by  no  means  desire  to  tell  tales  out  of  school, 
or  to  produce  the  impression  that  young  ladies 
when  left  alone  in  family  "  keeping-rooms  "  are  in 
the  habit  of  standing  before  the  domestic  looking- 
glass  and  contemplating  their  own  charms.  All 
we  have  to  rejnark  on  the  present  occasion  is,  that 
if  Nettie  Sylva  was  so  employed,  she  could  not 
easily  in  that  house  have  found  any  thing^  better 
worth  looking  at. 

For  "  the  keeping-room  "  of  Dr.  Sylva  was  evi- 
dently as  commonplace  and  fluffy  and  uninterest- 
ing a  scene  as  family  keeping-rooms  of  economical 
people  who  live  on  small  incomes  are  apt  to  be- 
come. There  was  a  faded  carpet,  a  worn  settee 
which  served  the  purpose  of  a  sofa,  a  book-case 
with  Rollin's  History,  Hume's  "  History  of  Eng- 
land," Scott's  Family  Bible,  Doddridge's  "Rise 
and  Progress,"  and  "  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  for 
reading.  There  was  a  turn-down  shelf  with 
pigeon-holes,  where  Dr.  Sylva  kept  account-books 
and  letters ;  there  was  a  half-dozen  of  slippery 
hard-wood-bottomed  chairs;  there  was  a  tall  old 
clock  tick-tacking  in  the  corner ;  and  there  were 
rustling  paper  window-shades,  which  Nettie  de- 
tested. Nettie,  in  fact,  detested  the  whole  room, 
as  a  horrid,  poor,  commonplace,  dusty,  musty  af- 
fair. Young  ladies  do  sometimes  have  just  such 
feelings  as  this  about  the  family  sitting-room. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHEE.      g 

Under  these  circumstances,  could  you  look  over 
Nettie's  shoulder  into  the  looking-glass,  you  would 
feel  the  force  of  what  we  have  been  saying :  that 
the  image  she  saw  there  was  the  best  worth  look- 
ing at  of  any  thing  in  the  room.  It  isn't  saying 
much,  to  be  sure.  Nettie  Sylva  was  a  tall,  lithe, 
handsome  girl,  and  looked  as  if  she  had  been  got 
up  by  Mother  Nature  in  a  more  generous  mood  of 
mind  than  she  generally  is  in  when  she  makes  our 
pure,  delicate,  spare,  lady-like  New-England  girls. 
She  was  like  a  tropical  flower ;  every  thing  about 
her  was  bright  and  rich  and  abundant.  She  had 
lovely  golden  brown  hair,  and  ever  so  much  of  it. 
Her  cheeks  had  the  high  bloom  and  color  of  the 
pomegranate.  She  had  great,  rich,  velvet  dark 
eyes  with  long  lashes ;  her  waist  was  round  as  an 
apple,  and  she  had  a  beautiful  fulness  of  form,  not 
a  common  attribute. of  American  beauty.  Nettie 
was  of  very  good  taste,  and  rather  liked  her  own 
looks.  It  was  said  there  was  a  tinge  of  Italian 
blood  in  her  veins,  through  some  grandmother  -on 
the  maternal  side  ;  but  Nettie  was  enough  of  a 
Yankee  for  all  that  to  have  a  pretty  good  sense  of 
what  things  were  worth,  and  what  could  be  done 
with  them  practically.  Consequently  the  store  of 
charms  which  she  saw  reflected  in  the  looking-glass 
were  something  that  she  very  well  knew  the  use 
of,  although  the  use  she  made  of  them  just  about 


4  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

these  days,  was  one  that  will  certainly  not  meet 
the  approbation  of  the  reflecting  mind.  On  the 
present  occasion  the  principal  use  that  she  was 
making  of  them  was  to  plague  and  tease  Horace 
Vanzandt,  as  she  had  previously  plagued  and  teased 
many  other  of  the  leading  beaux  of  the  village. 
Horace,  however,  was  most  particularly  attractive 
game.  He  was  handsome,  lively,  spirited,  hot- 
tempered,  and  forgiving,  so  that  it  was  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  both  to  put  him  into  a  passion 
and  to  get  him  out  of  it ;  and  these  two  exercises 
considerably  varied  the  dulness  of  the  village  life. 
For  Greyford  was  a  dull  village,  it  is  to  be  con- 
fessed. Nobody  was  very  rich  there,  and  nobody 
was  very  poor.  The  girls  were  all  educated  at  the 
high  school,  and  knew  and  read  and  had  heard 
about  all  sorts  of  scenes  that  they  could  not  afford 
to  see,  and  splendid  doings  in  the  world  that  they 
never  could  take  any  part  in,  and  read  serial  stories 
every  week  out  of  three  or  four  newspapers,  by 
means  of  which  they  lived  among  duchesses  and 
countesses,  and  had  all  sorts  of  thrilling  adventures 
in  the  spirit,  while  their  bodies  were  tied  down  to 
the  routine  of  a  narrow,  economical  family  life. 
The  young  men  at  Greyford,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
were  put  to  work  early,  and  hadn't  half  the  time 
to  read  and  study  and  get  themselves  up  in  poetry 
and  romances  that  the  girls  had,  and  consequently 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.      5 

there  was  none  of  them  that  appeared  to  the 
girls  the  ideal  hero ;  but  still  they  were  accepted 
as  the  best  there  was.  There  were  approved  ways 
and  means  of  seeing  each  other.  There  was  the 
singing-school  once  a  week,  where,  by  the  by,  Net- 
tie had  the  richest  voice  and  led  the  treble.  There 
were  apple-cuttings  and  croquet-parties ;  but,  best 
and  liveliest  of  all,  there  were  the  sleigh-rides  which 
came  in  the  winter,  when  the  young  fellows  were 
to  a  good  degree  released  from  farm-work,  and 
free  to  bask  in  the  charms  of  female  society. 

It  had  been  given  out  and  agreed  among  the 
young  fellows  of  the  village,  that,  as  soon  as  there 
was  snow  enough,  there  should  be  a  grand  sleigh- 
ride  over  to  the  hotel  in  North  Denmark,  where  a 
dancing-room  had  been  engaged,  and  provision 
made  for  a  regular  frolic. 

The  point  in  discussion  in  Nettie's  mind  as  she 
stood  nodding  at  her  image  in  the  glass  was  this : 
Would  Horace  Vanzandt  come  to  invite  hdfr  to  this 
sleigh-ride  ?  She  knew,  in  her  own  guilty  con- 
science, that  she  had  sent  him  off  horridly  angry 
the  Sunday  evening  before,  and  whether  he  had 
gotten  over  it  or  not  was  the  point  in  discussion  in 
her  own  mind ;  and,  by  way  of  estimating  the  bal- 
ance of  probabilities,  she  took  a  good  look  at  her- 
self. She  rather  thought  he  would  come  back, 
and  at  this  moment  she  heard  the  click  of  the 


6  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

gate.  In  a  moment  she  turned,  and  was  seated  in 
the  demurest  manner  at  her  work-basket,  making 
a  little  ruffled  apron  with  pockets,  in  which  she 
was  so  much  absorbed  that  Horace  was  obliged  to 
rap  three  or  four  times  on  the  door  till  he  could 
rouse  the  ear  of  the  little  inattentive  bound-girl 
in  the  back-kitchen.  There  had  been  times  when 
Miss  Nettie  under  such  circumstances  would  go 
and  open  the  door  herself,  and  say,  "  Oh !  is  it 
you?  I  thought,"  —  &c.,  &c.,  &c.  But  this 
morning  she  felt  diplomatic ;  and,  on  the  whole, 
she  concluded  that  he  must  be  made  to  come  all 
the  way.  Horace,  in  fact,  had  come  resolved  to 
beg  pardon  for  being  insulted  on  Sunday  evening. 
He  had  flown  into  a  passion  and  made  himself 
ridiculous.  Of  course  this  had  put  him  in  the 
wrong ;  but  now  here  was  the  snow  coming,  and 
he  wanted  Nettie  for  his  partner.  He  knew  that 
she  would  tease  and  provoke  him  the  whole  even- 
ing. Why,  then,  would  no  one  else  but  Nettie  do 
for  him,  when  there  was  Jane  Burgess,  the  nicest, 
sweetest,  most  reasonable  girl  that  ever  was  heard 
of,  who  never  did  or  said  an  unkind  thing  to  any- 
body ;  and  Rachel  Holley,  with  cheeks  and  forehead 
like  the  pink  and  the  white  of  sweet-peas  and  the 
prettiest  and  most  winning  of  voices  ?  Both  these 
had  graciously  entreated  him;  and  yet  he  could 
form  no  idea  of  anybody  that  he  wanted  except 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.      f 

this  vexatious  Nettie,  who  neither  would  take  him 
nor  let  him  alone,  and  kept  him  always  in  a  state 
of  fermentation.  Well,  why  does  a  young  fellow 
like  to  drive  a  lively,  high-spirited  filly,  that 
prances  and  curvets,  snorts,  and  pulls  on  the  bit, 
and  comes  within  an  inch  of  dashing  his  brains  out 
every  once  in  a  while  ?  We  leave  that  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  individuals  and  to  the  metaphysicians. 
All  is,  Horace  has  stood  long  enough  on  the  door- 
step, and  we  must  get  him  in. 


SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER    H. 

T  TORACE  determined  to  open  the  matter  cheer- 
fully*  and  ignore  the  fact  that  there  had 
been  any  quarrel ;  and  so  began  briskly,  "  Well, 
Miss  Sylva,  we" are  in  luck;  the  snow  has  come." 

"  I  don't  like  snow,"  said  Nettie,  contradic- 
tiously ;  but  she  smiled  as  she  said  it,  and,  lifting 
her  great,  beautiful  eyes,  fixed  them  on  Horace 
not  unkindly. 

"  But  don't  you  see,  Miss  Nettie,  our  sleigh-ride 
is  to  come  off  now  ?  " 

"  Sleigh-ride  ?  "  said  Miss  Nettie,  in  a  tone  of 
innocent  inquiry.  "  What  sleigh-ride  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course  you  know  r  the  sleigh-ride 
that  we  fellows  have  been  planning  for  three  or 
four  weeks  past.  We ' ve  got  the  room  and  the 
fiddler  all  engaged." 

Now,  Nettie  knew  all  these  things  perfectly 
well.  The  fact  was,  that  she  and  Jane  Burgess 
and  Rachel  Holley  had  discussed  them  over  and 
over,  to  the  minutest  details  of  possibilities,  and 
they  had  all  settled  what  they  were  to  wear.  But 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.      9 

was  she  to  let  the  enemy  know  this  ?  Of  course 
not. 

"  Oh !  "  she  said,  "  I  can't  be  expected  to  know, 
as  nothing  has  been  said  to  me." 

"  Why,  of  course,"  said  Horace. 

"  I  don't  think  it  is  of  course,"  said  Nettie. 
"  How  should  I  know  any  thing,  when  nothing 
has  been  said  to  me  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes  ;  it  is  all  arranged.  Jeff  Fleming  is 
to  take  Jane  Burgess  in  his  new  sleigh.  He  went 
to  New  Haven  last  week,  and  bought  a  new  string 
of  bells  on  purpose ;  and  Mark  Hinsdale  is  going 
with  Rachel  Holley ;  and  may  I  have  the  pleasure, 
Miss  Nettie,  of  taking  you  ?  " 

"  Oh !  it  appears  I  am  Hobson's  choice,  then. 
Thank  you.  I  don't  know  that  I  shall  care  to  go. 
It  will  be  very  cold,  and  I  think  sleigh-rides  are 
rather  a  bore." 

"  Now,  Miss  Sylva,  you  really  can't  be  so 
cruel." 

"  Cruel !  I  don't  know  what  you  call  cruel. 
Ah !  I  see  what  you  mean.  I  suppose  you  have 
tried  all  the  other  girls  and  found  them  engaged." 

"I  do  think  you  are  the  most  provoking  person, 
Miss  Nettie,  that  ever  I  did  know." 

Horace  Vanzandt  was  a  very  handsome  young 
fellow  ;  and  when  he  was  angry  the  blood  flushed 
into  his  cheek,  and  the  fire  snapped  from  his  eyes ; 
1* 


10  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

and  Nettie  felt  a  perilous  sort  of  pleasure  in  pro- 
voking these  natural  phenomena. 

"  Come  now,  Horace,"  she  said  suddenly,  assum- 
ing an  air  of  the  most  sisterly  concern.  "  Why 
must  we  always  quarrel  ?  not  that  I  care  particu- 
larly about  it,  but  it  really  grieves  me  to  see  a 
person  that  I  respect  give  way  to  his  temper  so." 

"  By  George !  Nettie,  it 's  your  fault,"  said 
Horace.  "  I  never  do  get  so  angry  with  anybody 
else,  but  you  seem  to  delight  to  make  me  misera- 
able.  Now,  I  came  to  invite  you  on  Sunday  night, 
but  you  quarrelled  with  me  and  got  it  all  out  of 
my  head." 

"  Well,  Horace,  if  you  have  come  just  to  renew 
the  Sunday  night's  quarrel "  — 

"  I  haven't.     I  came  to  make  up." 

"  And  give  me  Hobson's  choice  in  the  sleigh- 
ride,"  said  Nettie. 

Horace  rose  up  hastily,  and  flung  out  of  the 
room.  Nettie  gave  one  quick  mischievous  glance 
after  him,  seized  a  little  packet  from  her  work- 
basket,  ran  round  by  another  path  to  the  gate,  and 
was  there  before  Horace  got  there.  "  You  silly 
boy,"  she  said.  "  You  never  will  give  me  time  to 
give  you  this.  I  had  it  all  ready  for  you  on  Sun- 
day night." 

It  was  a  guard-chain  of  Nettie's  own  workman- 
ship which  had  been  promised  to  Horace  months 
before. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.      H 

"  I  've  sat  up  many  a  night  working  on  this," 
she  said  reproachfully. 

"  O  Nettie  !  " 

"  Come  now,  let 's  be  friends,"  she  said,  laying 
her  hand  on  his  arm.  "  Really,  Horace,  I  feel 
absolutely  concerned  about  your  violent  temper. 
You  must  overcome  it."  Horace  looked  at  her 
quizzically  as  she  put  the  guard-chain  round  his 
neck,  and  then  followed  her  an  unresisting  captive 
into  the  house  again,  where  it  pleased  Nettie  to 
keep  him  at  her  feet  reading  Tennyson  to  her  till 
near  dinner-time.  And  this  was  the  way  that 
matters  commonly  went  on  between  Horace  and 
Nettie. 

Horace  Vanzandt  was  the  son  of  one  of  the 
largest  farmers  in  the  neighborhood,  and  the 
youngest  of  four  brothers  who  all  took  respectably 
to  farming.  Horace  was  of  a  lively  turn  of  mind, 
and  meant  to  strike  out  something  rather  more 
adventurous  and  congenial  in  life.  If  there  was 
any  thing  he  detested  it  was  following  the  slow 
steps  of  oxen,  ploughing,  and  planting  potatoes 
and  harvesting  little  gains  at  the  end  of  the  year. 
Horace  determined  to  be  an  inventor.  He  had  a 
turn  for  machinery  and  a  Yankee  quickness  of 
hand.  He  even  in  boyhood  had  made  a  pattern 
of  a  water-wheel  which  turned  an  imaginary  mill 
in  the  brook  in  the  back  lot.  He  had  devised  a 


12  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

churn  for  his  mother,  which  the  knowing  ones 
said  might  have  taken  a  patent  if  somebody  else 
hadn't  made  one  just  like  it  before  him.  So  Hor- 
ace read  and  thought,  and  whittled,  and  studied 
models,  and  used  to  carry  them  up  to  show  to 
Nettie,  who  sometimes  laughed  at  them,  but,  after 
all,  rather  fed  the  flame  of  his  hopes  and  anticipa- 
tions. 

Nettie  sympathized  with  all  her  fiery,  restless 
heart  in  Horace's  contempt  of  farming,  and  in  his 
desires  to  make  to  himself  a  fortune  in  some  easier 
way.  She  detested  the  dull  reality  of  life  in  Grey- 
ford,  where,  as  she  phrased  it,  "  nobody  ever  came, 
and  nothing  ever  happened." 

Greyford,  to  be  sure,  was  one  of  those  still, 
quiet  towns  which  impress  travellers  who  ride 
through  it  with  the  idea  that  the  inhabitants  are 
all  either  dead  or  gone  on  long  voyages.  The 
front  doors  were  always  tight  shut  even  in  the 
warmest  summer  weather,  and  not  a  human  creat- 
ure was  by  any  accident  ever  seen  about  them. 
All  the  window-blinds  were  tight  closed,  except 
perhaps  one-half  of  one  on  one  side,  far  to  the 
back  of  the  house.  The  reason  of  this  was,  that 
when  the  Greyford  housekeepers  had  cleaned  the 
paint  of  the  chambers  and  parlors,  in  the  spring, 
they  wanted  to  keep  them  immaculate  from  flies, 
and  so  shut  up  all  the  window-bunds  till  the  time 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     13 

for  the  autumn  cleaning.  Meanwhile  they  lived 
in  one  or  two  rooms  in  the  back  of  the  house,  and 
congratulated  themselves  that  the  front  part  was 
always  in  order.  This  particular  habit,  by  the 
way,  though  a  most  efficient  preservative  of  the 
colors  of  carpets  and  conducive  to  the  health  and 
long  life  of  the  hair-seat  chairs  and  chintz-covered 
sofas  which  lurked  within  these  dark  domains,  was 
not  acceptable  to  Master  Horace.  He  used  to  say 
that  when  he  had  a  house  of  his  own  he  was  going 
to  set  apart  one  room  in  it  for  a  fly-room,  and  have 
it  warm  and  bright  and  airy  and  sunny,  and  have 
just  as  many  flies  in  it  as  he  wanted.  Nettie, 
when  he  said  this  one  day  in  her  presence,  an- 
swered promptly,  that  if  he  went  on  in  that  con- 
trary spirit  he  would  find  not  only  flies  entering 
into  his  room,  but  Beelzebub  the  god  of  flies: 
whereupon  Horace  rejoined  impulsively  that  he 
hoped  to  coax  a  goddess  in  there,  not  a  devil. 
Then  he  stopped  short,  a  little  embarrassed.  Net- 
tie, however,  with  that  instinctive  readiness  of 
which  the  shyest  and  most  skittish  young  ladies 
have  the  most,  answered  with  a  sniff  that  he 
wasn't  likely  to  catch  many  goddesses  unless  he 
baited  his  trap  with  something  better  than  flies. 

But,  as  we  have  said  a  few  words  about  Grey- 
ford,  we  will  make  bold  to  say  a  few  more ;  for 
the  fact  is,  that  this  ancient  town  is  itself  better 

m 


14  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

worth  knowing,  not  merely  than  the  two  inexpe- 
rienced young  persons  about  whom  we  have  been 
talking,  but  even  than  the  whole  of  any  one  of  the 
generations  of  hard-working,  economical,  hum- 
drum New-Englanders,  who  have  slowly  followed 
each  other  to  the  old-fashioned  dreary  burying- 
ground  of  the  town  since  its  first  settlement  in 
the  year  1639. 

Greyford  is  one  of  the  very  oldest  of  the  Con- 
necticut towns,  and,  like  all  those  which  were  por- 
tions of  the  original  New  Haven  Colony,  was 
settled  in  good  measure  by  "gentry,"  as  distin- 
guished from  the  yeomanry,  from  whom  almost 
exclusively  the  Connecticut  colony  was  recruited. 
Hence  its  families  have  yet  traditions  and  heir- 
looms that  knit  together  with  a  strong  but  invisible 
tie  the  working-day  life  that  now  is,  and  the  far- 
away days  of  the  knights  and  gentlemen  of  Good 
Queen  Bess  and  her  successor  Gentle  King  Jamie. 
These,  however,  are  but  few,  —  an  ancient  copy 
of  the  Geneva  Bible,  or  a  faded  and  almost  invisi- 
ble embroidered  coat-of-arms.  But  of  both  the 
early  and  the  later  days  of  our  history,  the  me- 
morials were  more  numerous,  and  the  recollections 
were  clear  and  authentic,  and  romantic  too.  The 
sons  of  old  Greyford,  farmers  though  they  were, 
bravely  upheld  the  cause,  and  followed  the  banner 
of  their  country,  whether  it  was  the  blood-red  flag 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     15 

of  the  English  king,  or  the  brighter  stars  and 
stripes,  from  the  old  French  War  down  to  the  Re- 
bellion ;  serving  always  under  officers  of  their 
own  choice,  wise  and  experienced  fellow-towns- 
men of  their  own.  Others  had  followed  the  sea, 
and  had  brought  home  with  them  to  ornament  the 
brown  old  homesteads  where  they  established  them- 
selves to  end  their  days,  such  strange  and  fantastic 
articles  as  sailors  delight  to  gather. 

Now  the  antique  queen's  arms  and  the  old 
carved  powder-horns,  the  whales'  teeth  and  the 
New-Zealand  clubs,  startle  and  interest  the  visitor 
who  finds  them  in  a  country  farm-house,  and  set 
him  thinking  and  questioning.  In  like  manner 
these  manifold  experiences  of  war  and  seafaring 
had  stored  the  minds  of  the  dwellers  in  Greyford 
with  many  curious  tales,  and  with  travellers' 
thoughts  and  opinions,  such  as  seem  strange  and 
uncanny  to  the  dwellers-at-home,  but  yet  are  full  of 
stimulus  and  fascination. 

In  such  communities  there  are  always  such  per- 
sons as  we  commonly  term  "  characters."  A  re- 
tired sea-captain  is  certain  to  be  a  character. 
Long-forgotten  strains  of  ancestral  blood  reap- 
pear all  of  a  sudden  in  some  curious  manifestation 
in  a  plain  farmer's  son  or  daughter ;  and  the  child 
grows  up  perhaps  into  a  genius,  but  oftener  into  a 
specimen  of  peculiarities  —  a  character.  And  even 


16  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

the  life  of  the  farmers  who  live  and  die  at  home, 
utterly  uneventful  as  it  is,  is  in  itself  far  from  un- 
favorable to  the  development  of  strange  and  odd 
traits.  There  is  something  in  the  calmness  of  the 
sunny  fields,  in  the  stillness  of  winter  snows,  in 
the  cool  quiet  of  the  green  woods,  that  conjures 
certain  minds  into  even  an  unnatural  excitement, 
even  by  the  mystical  influence  of  mere  silent  soli- 
tude. 

The  landscape  of  Greyford,  and  the  character 
of  its  surroundings,  were  so  varied  and  picturesque 
as  to  add  great  power  to  these  natural  influences. 
There  were  broad  tracts  of  ancient  woodland, 
stretching  far  away  over  the  hills.  There  was  a 
river,  a  clear  and  lively  stream,  that  ran  through 
the  township  and  entered  the  sea  not  very  far 
away.  There  were  broad  and  level  tracts  of 
singularly  fertile  farming  land.  Here  and  there 
among  the  wooded  hills  of  the  back  country  were 
lovely  little  lakes,  all  alone  in  the  forest,  and 
plentifully  stocked  with  perch  and  roach  and  pick- 
erel, and  well-known  to  many  a  barefooted  bqjr  as 
the  Meccas  of  his  rare  half-holidays.  At  the  ex- 
treme north-eastern  part  of  the  town,  orie  steep 
mountain,  so  isolated  and  so  bold  in  its  outline  as 
to  seem  much  loftier  than  it  really  was,  stood  up 
alone  and  silent,  shrouded  to  its  very  summit  in 
thick,  tall  forest-trees,  while  the  vast,  sheer  de- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.  17 

scent  of  its  eastern  face  plunged  down  in  one 
immense  cliff,  far  below  the  surface  of  the  earth ; 
for  close  under  it  was  the  largest  of  all  the  lakes 
of  the  whole  region,  whose  steep  shore,  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  mountain  precipice,  sank  into 
black  waters  reputed  to  be  unfathomable.  The 
road  that  led  northward  through  this  wild  and 
striking  pass  had  been  scored  deep  into  the  living 
rock,  for  there  was  not  a  foot  of  level  land  to 
hold  it. 

Doubtless  all  these  influences  had  moulded  and 
modified  more  or  less  the  traits  of  every  personage 
in  this  our  story  ;  to  which,  having  said  all  that  we 
wanted  to  about  geography  and  history,  we  now 
return. 

Nettie  had  a  painstaking  step-mother,  a  worthy 
woman,  devoted  to  the  task  of  keeping  her  father's 
house  in  the  required  style.  The  relations  between 
her  and  Nettie  were  diplomatic.  Nettie  was  not 
fond  of  housework,  and  Mrs.  Dr.  Sylva  was ;  and 
it  occurred  to  the  young  lady,  that,  in  this  con- 
junction of  circumstances,  it  was  only  the  fair 
thing  that  her  mother-in-law,  who  had  the  work 
to  do,  should  arrange  the  house  in  her  own  way ; 
though  as  we  have  intimated,  it  was  a  way  ex- 
tremely distasteful  to  Nettie.  Still,  rather  than 
take  hold  with  her  own  hands  and  conduct  the 
housekeeping  on  another  pattern,  Nettie  was  will- 


18  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

ing  to  let  things  take  their  course  without  remon- 
strance. She  had  her  own  dresses  to  make  and 
alter  according  to  the  patterns  in  "  Harper's  Bazar," 
she  had  several  serial  stories  on  hand  to  read,  and 
she  had  the  afore-named  singing-schools,  apple- 
cuttings,  croquet-parties,  tea-drinkings,  and  sleigh- 
rides  to  attend,  and  generally  a  love-affair  off  or 
on;  for  Nettie  was  one  of  the  sort  who  scarcely 
ever  made  a  visit  without  webbing  some  silly  fly 
in  her  net,  and  having  a  love-letter  of  some  kind 
to  answer. 

This  conduct  of  Nettie's  was  very  seriously  dis- 
approved, not  only  by  the  matrons  of  Greyford, 
but  by  the  young  ladies  of  her  set,  who  were 
understood  in  confidential  moments  to  aver  to 
each  other  that  Nettie  Sylva  was  a  flirt,  and  that 
it  really  was  abominable  for  her  to  trifle  with 
gentlemen  as  she  did. 

But  so  long  as  Nettie  found  that  the  gentlemen 
rather  liked  to  be  trifled  with,  and  that  their 
hearts,  however  sorely  scratched  and  lacerated  by 
her  claws,  had  a  marvellous  aptitude  for  healing, 
her  own  conscience  was  quite  at  ease  in  the  mat- 
ter. In  fact,  Nettie  looked  upon  flirtation  as  the 
only  providential  compensation  her  case  admitted 
of  in  her  compulsory  dull  existence  in  Greyford. 

Horace  Vanzandt  was,  on  the  whole,  rather 
more  to  her  than  any  of  her  other  beaux ;  but  then 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     19 

Horace  had  no  money,  and  there  seemed  no  likeli- 
hood of  his  having  any  for  years  to  come ;  so,  as 
Nettie  sensibly  remarked,  there  was  no  sort  of  use 
in  having  any  thing  more  than  a  friendship.  But 
of  course  the  gossips  mated  them,  and  they  gener- 
ally in  point  of  fact  were  mated,  as  in  the  present 
sleigh-ride.  Jeff  Fleming  never  thought  of  such" 
a  thing  as  presuming  to  ask  Nettie  when  Horace 
was  evidently  setting  his  cap  in  that  direction ; 
and  Mark  Hinsdale,  though  he  had  written  a 
sonnet  on  her  in  "  The  Greyford  Union  Eagle," 
did  not  so  much  as  venture  to  think  of  driving  her 
in  his  sleigh  on  this  occasion. 

Nettie  winced  a  little  at  times  under  this  state 
of  things.  She  wanted  variety.  "  Who  wants  to 
be  tied  always  to  one  fellow?"  she  remarked. 
Jane  Burgess,  on  the  contrary,  had  been  heard  to 
assert,  that,  if  she  had  a  friend  as  devoted  to  her 
as  Horace  was  to  Nettie,  she  would  take  more 
care  how  she  treated  him. 

Jane  was,  to  say  the  truth,  just  one  of  those 
women  whom  good  mothers  and  sisters  always 
wish  their  sons  and  brothers  would  marry.  She 
was  pretty,  she  was  witty,  and  she  was  wise ;  but 
all  in  such  just  proportions,  that  there  was  no 
salient  point.  She  was  a  girl  of  scruples,  careful 
what  she  said  and  did,  true  to  the  heart's  core, 
and  without  shadow  of  turning. 


20  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Nettie  Sylva  was  a  bundle  of  capabilities  and 
perhapses.  What  she  might  become  was  a  prob- 
lem. She  lived  a  life  of  impulse  rather  than 
reflection,  and  did  things  from  morning  till  night 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  she  felt  like  them  at 
the  moment.  She  belonged  to  the  class  celebrated 
by  our  respected  friend  Mr.  Alexander  Pope,  — 

"  Ladies,  like  variegated  tulips,  show 
'Tis  to  their  changes  half  their  charms  they  owe." 

Nettie  certainly  had  as  many  streaks  as  a  first- 
class  tulip,  and  changes  enough  to  make  her  ex- 
tremely charming ;  and  after  Horace  went  away, 
she  proceeded,  with  the  aid  of  "  Harper's  Bazar," 
to  compose  a  toilette  for  the  next  week's  fete  of 
the  most  killing  description. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.  21 


CHAPTER    III. 

TTENRIETTA  SYLVA  put  on  her  hat  one 
afternoon,  and  went  over  to  old  Miss  Bur- 
gess's. By  "  old  Miss  Burgess,"  I  don't  mean 
Jane.  I  never  could  bear  to*  have  people  under 
any  sort  of  misapprehension  for  a  moment,  even 
for  the  sake  of  an  after  agreeable  surprise. 

Old  Miss  Burgess  is  the  aunt.  Jane  is  the 
niece.  Though,  from  living  so  long  and  so  quietly 
with  so  prim  and  quaint  a  piece  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, Jane  had  perhaps  caught  a  flavor  of  the  last 
generation  herself,  and  mixed  it  up  with  her  nine- 
teen years  in  a  certain,  gentle  and  odd  suggestion 
of  old-maidishness,  that  joins  itself  to  her  bloom 
and  prettiness  like  a  bit  of  thyme  or  lavender  set 
in  a  bouquet ;  and  she  took  on  something  aunt- 
like  in  her  ways  among  the  girls.  That  is  why 
Nettie  Sylva,  I  think,  liked  her,  and  came  to  her, 
with  all  her  little  snarls  that  she  could  not  pick 
out  herself.  Not  for  the  help  alone,  either ;  she 
liked  to  shock  the  proper  Jane,  mildly,  with  her 
freaks  and  nights.  For  Jane  took  every  thing  in 
a  calm,  saint-like  fashion,  —  even  her  shocks. 


22  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Jane  Burgess  was  a  pretty  girl  of  the  years- 
gone-by  sort ;  one  that  could  wear  her  hair  plain 
and  smooth  to  her  head,  twisted  up  behind,  and 
have  a  dark  calico  gown  on,  without  making  any 
difference.  The  prettiness  was  there,  —  a  fact; 
in  the  clear,  pure,  healthily-tinted  skin ;  the  open, 
fair  contour;  the  large,  deep,  soft  blue-gray  eyes, 
with  black,  easily-dropping  lashes  ;  the  even  brows, 
the  demure  little  nose,  with  perfect  profile,  the 
same  both  ways ;  and  the  delicious  mouth,  playing 
with  a  peculiar,  tender,  fascinating  little  curve  of 
its  own  over  the  faultless,  shyly  visible  teeth. 

Once  in'  a  while  of  a  warm  summer's  day,  busy 
in  her  garden,  or  coming  home  from  a  walk ;  or  in 
a  crisp  winter  wind ;  or  over  the  fire  or  the  iron- 
ing board,  in  the  flush  of  her  work,  —  Jane's 
smooth  brown  hair  would  ruffle  and  wave  itself 
into  a  soft  mistiness  and  lightness  about  her  fore- 
head, and  perhaps  get  pushed  back  in  her  forget- 
fulness  from  off  her  delicate  temples ;  and  then 
you  saw  one  of  those  accidents  of  loveliness  that 
never  happen  in  these  deliberately  got-up  days. 
Once,  girls  were  liable  to  bewitching  little  uncon- 
scious changes;  Nature  had  her  own  cunning 
tricks  and  manners  with  them ;  excitement  or 
exercise  lit 'them  up,  tossed  them  into  pretty  be- 
wilderments of  arrangement  and  color,  and  gave 
the  looker-on  little  blessed  revelations  and  sur- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     23 

prises :  but  now  there  must  be  bewilderment  all 
the  time  ;  they  must  turn  away  from  their  looking- 
glasses  all  fluffed  up  with  a  cloudy  confusion  of 
carefully  dishevelled  charms,  that  will  not  let  any 
line  be  traced  throughout,  but  leaves  artfully  so 
much  to  the  imagination,  —  makes  so  many  breaks, 
like  the  shimmer  of  a  veil,  —  that  a  general  jumble 
and  sparkle  imposes  itself  almost  as  a  universal 
beauty.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  beauty 
about ;  but  you  do  not  know  exactly  where  it  is, 
any  more  than  you  do  where  the  specie  is  that  the 
currency  stands  for.  Everybody  gets  temporarily 
credited  for  a  little.  It  is  pretty  much  so  with  all 
our  living,  —  even  our  thinking.  Life  is  broken 
up  into  delusive  rainbows.  There  is  hardly  any 
steady,  pure,  white  light  anywhere. 

Old  Miss  Burgess  met  Nettie  Sylva  at  the  door, 
her  glasses  pushed  up  against  her  cap,  and  her 
long  gray  knitting-work  in  her  hands. 

"Jane  has  gone  abroad  this  afternoon,"  she 
said.  "  But  walk  in ;  lay  off  your  things,  and  stay 
and  drink  tea.  She  '11  be  proper  glad  to  see  you 
when  she  comes.  You  're  quite  a  stranger." 

Nettie  Sylva  knew  what  the  old  lady  meant. 
Jane  had  not  gone  to  Europe.  We  have  not  quite 
arrived  at  the  time,  though  it  looks  as  if  we  might 
be  near  it,  when  one  can  leave  word  with  the 
family,  or  with  the  serving-maid,  as  one  puts  one's 


24  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

gloves  on,  —  "I  am  going  over  in  this  afternoon's 
catapult;  shall  be  back  to  tea,"  —  take  a  shoot 
through  the  Liverpool  tunnel  and  a  half-hourly 
balloon  to  London,  —  make  a  few  friendly  calls, 
and  hurry  back  at  dusk. 

No.  Miss  Burgess  only  meant,  —  in  the  old- 
fashioned  way,  used  when  nobody  went  more  than 
a  mile  or  two  from  home,  except  with  grave  prep- 
aration of  scrip  and  staff,  and  making  one's  will 
beforehand,  for  weighty  cause  of  life  or  love  or 
property,  —  that  Jane  had  gone  for  a  walk  in  the 
village. 

"I  most  wonder  you  didn't  come  across  her 
somewheres,"  said  the  old  lady,  drawing  her 
glasses  down  again,  and  poring  over  a  dropped 
stitch.  "  She  must  be  in  to  Squire  Holley's." 

When  one  of  these  three  girls  —  Jane  Burgess, 
Nettie  Sylva,  or  Rachel  Holley  —  missed  another, 
she  was  pretty  sure  to  turn  up  in  company  with 
the  third.  They  were  as  different  as  the  three 
angles  of  a  scalene  triangle,  and  just  as  essential 
to  each  other  in  the  making  up;  especially  at  a 
time  like  this,  when  a  grand  frolic  was  afoot,  invi- 
tations given  and  pending,  and  gowns  to  be  decided 
on ;  to  say  nothing  of  feminine  tactics  and  councils 
of  war  for  the  campaign. 

Nettie  Sylva  came  to  Jane  Burgess  for  nice  little 
moral  lectures  and  wise  counsel;  but  then  in  a 


'HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.         £5 

sly,  keen  fashion,  she  often  turned  round  upon  her 
before  they  finished  their  talk,  and  gave  quite  as 
good  as  she  got. 

"Now,  what  on  earth  am  I  to  do  with  that 
Horace  ? "  she  says  to  Jane,  leaning  over  the 
bureau  while  that  particular  young  lady  folded  up 
and  put  away  her  shawl  and  gloves  ;  Nettie,  mean- 
time, taking  sidelong  peeps  at  the  looking- 
glass,  trying  to  examine  her  own  profile,  which 
she  was  never  quite  satisfied  with  when  she  saw 
Jane's. 

"  It 's  the  fqx  and  the  goose  and  the  basket  of 
corn.  If  I  say  no,  and  stay  at  home,  there  's  my 
own  poor  little  nose  cut  off,  you  see,  —  if  it 's  pretty 
to  say  so ;  if  I  go  with  anybody  else,  —  oh,  my 
gracious !  wouldn't  there  be  a  ferment  and  a 
rumpus  ?  And  if  I  undertake  to  go  all  that  six 
miles  with  him  alone,  I  shall  either  have  to  jump 
out  into  a  snowbank  and  run  home,  or  keep  up 
such  a  squabble  as  I  really  haven't  conscience  or 
constitution  for,  or  else  hear  all  he  's  got  to  say ; 
and  I  ain't  ready,  Jane  Burgess  !  I  've  quarrelled 
with  him  till  I  'm  tired." 

"  What  do  you  quarrel  with  him  for  ?  " 

"  What  else  can  I  do  ?      It  isn't  safe  to  stay 

made  up  with  him  half  an  hour.     It's  the  only 

way  a  girl  has  to  get  time  for  herself.     There 's  no 

fairness  in  it.     A  man  can  stand  off,  and  look,  and 

2 


26  SIX  OF  ONE  BY' 

consider,  till  he  's  made  up  his  mind ;  and  then  he 
can  come  forward,  and  '  be  particular ; '  and  you 
can't  let  him  begin  to  be  the  least  bit  particular 
without  giving  him  claims ;  and  how  on  earth 
you  're  to  be  fair  to  yourself  and  decent  with  him, 
I  can't  make  out !  " 

"  I  suppose  the  girl  has  the  same  time  to  look 
and  consider  that  the  man  has,"  said  quiet  Jane. 

"  Yes,  indeed !  And  then  what  if  he  never 
begins  ?  I  tell  you  it 's  all  on  one  side,  and 
I  believe  I  won't  have  any  thing  to  do  with  it !  " 

And  Nettie  pouted,  and  felt  the  tears  coming 
into  her  eyes,  and  saw  the  pins  on  Jane's  cushion 
begin  to  glitter  and  grow  big ;  and  then  she 
glanced  round  into  the  glass  again,  to  find  out  how 
she  looked  when  she  was  crying. 

"  I  think  it  is  ordered,  if  we  only  try  to  do  what 
is  right,"  said  Jane,  virtuously. 

"  Yes ;  and  how  are  you  going  to  know  ?  If 
you  look  at  a  thing  all  round,  there  are  so  many 
rights.  It 's  right  for  me  to  work  myself  out,  and 
find  out  what  I  am,  and  what  I  want,  and  let  him 
see.  I  've  no  business  to  be  all  Sylva  and  no 
Nettie,  till  after  I  'm  married,  and  then  drop  it,  as 
I  've  got  to  do.  And  he  ought  to  be  willing ;  it.'s 
for  his  good :  he  ought  to  take  time  for  his  own 
sake;  but  men  never  do.  They  are  always  in  a 
hurry." 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     27 

It  is  funny  to  see  how  a  girl  who  comes  to  have 
affairs  to  manage  with  one  man,  talks  immediately 
of  the  whole  sex  in  a  generalizing  way,  and  feels 
as  if  she  had  all  mankind  at  once  upon  her  hands ; 
and  vice  versa. 

Well,  it  is  true  in  a  sense.  They  do  stand  to 
each  other,  representatively  and  inclusively,  as 
man  and  woman ;  it  is  always,  in  each  new  ex- 
periment, Adam  and  Eve  again,  whatever  else 
they  may  happen  to  have  been  christened. 

"  There  is  one  thing  that  is  always  right,"  said 
Jane.  "  Not  to  do  any  thing,  ever  so  little,  to 
draw  a  man  on,  unless  you  are  sure  you  are  "  — 
She  paused  shyly,  with  a  bit  of  a  blush  rising. 

"  Smashed  yourself !  "  said  Nettie,  boldly.  "  And 
how  are  you  going  to  know  when  you  are  smashed  ? 
Or  how  are  you  ever  likely  to  be  till  you  have 
knocked  round  a  little  ?  That 's  the  point.  You 
can't  buy  a  pair  of  shoes  without  trying  'em  on. 
It's  ridiculous ! " 

She  began  again  presently. 

"  Mrs.  Sylva  says  it 's  very  '  shallow '  of  me  not 
to  know  my  own  mind.  That 's  a  great  word  of 
my  stepmother's.  But  if  I  were  shallow,  really,  I 
don't  think  I  should  have  any  trouble.  I  tell  you 
it 's  just  sounding,  and  doubting,  and  considering 
that  makes  me  act  so.  There  are  so  many  sides 
to  every  thing;  and  somehow  I  always  see  the 


28  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

opposite  one.  That 's  the  reason  I  quarrel ;  and 
then,  again,  that's  the  reason  I  make  up." 

"  If  I  imagined  I  ever  might  marry  a  person," 
said  Jane  thoughtfully,  "  I  shouldn't  want  to  have 
all  these  little  fusses  beforehand.  I  shouldn't 
think  he  would  depend  so  much  on  me  after- 
wards." 

"  I  don't  want  to  be  depended  on.  I  want  him 
to  be  thankful  every  day  for  what  he  gets,  as  we 
all  are ;  not  knowing  how  long  it 's  going  to  last. 
That 's  Christian." 

"  Christian  for  him,"  said  Jane  quietly. 

"  And  if  I  sanctify  him,  what  better  can  I  do  ? 
That  brings  up  the  'ordering'  again.  Do  you 
believe  people  are  cut  out  for  each  other,  Jane  ? 
I  don't.  If  they  are,  I  should  like  to  know  who 
does  it." 

"  I  think  the  Lord  does,"  said  Jane.  "  At  any 
rate,  he  brings  people  together." 

"  It 's  fixed  very  queer,"  said  Nettie  meditatively, 
with  a  puzzled  frown  knit  up  into  her  forehead. 
"  Because  you  can't  allow  for  the  growing.  It  has 
to  be  all  settled  before  you  really  come  to  any 
thing.  As  if  things  had  been  fitted  on  to  me  when 
I  was  five  years  old  to  last  all  my  lifetime.  That 's 
no  way  for  —  anybody  —  to  cut  out !  And  I  don't 
believe  anybody  can.  How  do  I  know  what  I 
shall  be  ten  years  from  now?  Or  Horace  Van- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.     29 

zandt,  either  ?  It  is  an  awful  long  measuring ! 
Now  I  think  of  it,  that  was  the  way  mother  used 
to  do  with  my  gowns  when  she  first  came.  She 
made  them  down  to  my  heels,  for  fear  I  should 
outgrow  them.  And  I  hated  them:  they  were 
never  right.  I  won't  begin  life  so,  all  of  a  draggle, 
because  I  shall  be  up  higher  by  and  by ;  neither 
do  I  want  to  be  left  anyways  unprovided  for  or 
out  in  the  cold,  when  I  do  get  bigger.  It  isn't 
fair !  We  ought  to  be  made  so  as  to  keep  pretty 
longer,  and  have  some  chances ! "  And  Nettie 
ended,  as  usual,  with  a  look  in  the  glass. 

"  The  best  way  is  to  make  things  that  can  be 
let  out  and  let  down  for  the  growing,"  Jane  said. 
"  There  is  more  in  everybody  than  they  know  of, 
I  suppose.  And  the  Lord,  making  the  measures, 
knows  it  all,  doesn't  he  ?  " 

"  I  presume  it 's  proper  to  say  he  does,"  said 
Nettie.  ,"Jane!  what  are  you  going  to  wear 
Thursday  ?  " 

"  My  stone-colored  brilliantine,  with  blue  rib- 
bons, and  some  white  chrysanthemums  in  my 
hair." 

"  There,  now !  That 's  just  you  !  All  so  easy 
and  quiet,  and  ready  beforehand,  and  no-kind-of- 
consequence-what ;  and,  after  all,  you  '11  be  the 
very  prettiest  one.  Rachel  is  going  to  be  won- 
derful, though.  Did  she  tell  you!  That  new 


30  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

dazzle-blue  merino,  with  swan's-down  round  the 
neck  and  sleeves." 

"  I  saw  it.     What  is  yours  ?  " 

"  Crimson,  with  a  flash  in  it.  Tea-rosebuds  and 
coral  flowers.  My  roses  are  just  blooming  on  pur- 
pose. I  shall  carry  them  in  a  box  on  wet  cotton- 
wool. Won't  Horace  get  into  a  fry  while  he  's 
waiting  down  stairs  for  me  to  put  them  on  ?  And 
then,  while  he  's  getting  over  it,  1 11  be  promising 
for  half  the  dances  to  everybody  that  asks.  He 
always  loses  the  next  thing  while  he 's  rebelling 
about  the  last.  He's  got  lots  to  learn.  Jane! 
I  '11  just  tell  you  what,  —  I  've  as  good  a  mind  as 
ever  was  to  take  Jeff  Fleming  in  the  pairing-off." 

Jane  colored  up  suddenly ;  then  as  suddenly 
calmed  down  and  smiled. 

"  You  think  he  won't  ?  We  '11  see.  Jane,  you  're 
altogether  too  settled.  You  're  just  as  bad,  the  other 
way,  as  I  am.  And  there  's  one  thing,  —  I  dare  say 
you  've  no  idea  of  it,  —  but  I  doubt  if  an}>-  thing 
makes  much  difference  to  you,  after  all.  It  hap- 
pens to  be  Jeff,  because  you  've  had  him  at  your 
elbow  all  your  days,  and  it 's  *  cut  out.'  The  truth 
is,  you  a'n't  cut  out  for  anybody  in  particular  so 
much  as  just  for  a  pattern.  You  '11  be  sweet  and 
mild,  and  you  '11  be  married,  and  you  '11  housekeep, 
just  because  it 's  all  a  part  of  perfect  living  for  a 
woman ;  and  that 's  what  you  're  in  love  with.  Jeff 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     31 

Will  do  as  well  to  hang  it  on  to  as  anybody;  and 
you  '11  live  and  die  in  a  frame  of  mind  like  a  pan  of 
hiilk.  And  you  '11  set,  and  you  '11  just  turn  to  solid, 
tranquil  bonny-clabber.  Now,  J'm  going  to  be 
either  butter  or  cheese ;  I  haven't  made  my  mind 
up  which.  I  've  got  'em  both  in  me.  Isn't  that 
queer?  " 

And  she  followed  Jane  downstairs  into  the 
corner  sitting-room,  where  Miss  Burgess  was  cut- 
ting up  spice-cake  for  tea ;  and  of  course  there  was 
not  much  more  said  except  about  how  her  mother 
did,  and  whether  the  doctor  thought  old  Deacon 
Chowle  was  any  better,  and  how  Jane  had  found 
Mrs.  Holley  this  afternoon ;  Mrs.  Holley  being  an 
invalid,  and  so  always  a  staple  of  conversation.  And 
at  six  o'clock,  the  starlight  already  shining  over 
the  snow,  Nettie  set  off  for  home,  meeting  Jeff 
Fleming  at  the  gate  as  she  went  out,  and  encoun- 
tering Horace  Vanzandt  afterwards  at  the  post- 
office,  as  she  had  ever}r  reason  to  expect  she  might, 
and  letting  him  walk  home  with  her  for  such  con- 
solation as  he  could  get  by  the  way,  with  all  her 
little  defensive  prickles  set  up  and  alert  whichever 
way  he  tried  to  stroke  her. 

If  Horace  Vanzandt  had  not  been  of  the  inven- 
tive order  of  mind,  fond  of  puzzles,  and  given  to 
combating  little  wearying  obstacles  with  a  most 
fine  and  patient  and  delicate  ingenuity,  the  mere 


32  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

man  that  was  in  him  must  have  revolted  long  ago 
at  Nettie's  whims,  and  thrown  the  whole  thing 
over.  But  I  thing  the  mechanician  could  not  give' 
up  the  fascinating  perplexity.  The  more  he  was 
baffled,  the  more  the  wheels  would  not  run  and 
the  cogs  would  not  catch,  the  more  he  was  irresist- 
bly  drawn  to  pursue  the  reason  why,  —  the  more 
nicely  and  curiously  he  tried  time  after  time  to 
adapt  his  experiments.  If  he  flung  every  thing  by 
in  a  pet,  it  was  only  to  make  himself  more  work  in 
repairing  intricate  and  involved  damages,  when  he 
came  back,  penitent  and  patient,  as  in  the  nature 
of  him  he  could  not  help  doing,  to  his  task  again. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"D  ACHEL  HOLLEY  sat  reading  to  her  mother 
in  the  little  bedroom  that  opened  from  the 
long  sitting-room,  until  five  o'clock ;  then  Roxana 
came  in  with  Mrs.  Holley's  tea,  and  Rachel  kissed 
her  mother,  and  went  off  to  her  own  room  to  dress. 
For  this  was  Thursday  evening ;  and  Mark  Hiiis- 
dale  was  to  come  for  her  at  half-past  six,  to  drive 
her  to  North  Denmark  for  the  sleigh-ride  dance. 

Rachel  Holley's  toilet  was  even  a  prettier  thing 
than  the  result ;  but  we  have  no  right  to  look  at 
it,  —  to  see  the  fresh  pink  of  her  face,  and  the 
white  of  her  arms  and  shoulders  as  they  come 
clear  and  blooming  from  under  the  dashes  of  cold 
water  and  the  soft  wrapping  and  pattings  of  the 
towel ;  to  watch  her  brush  her  little  set  of  pearls, 
and  hear  the  pure,  zvhole  sound  that  tells  of  their 
perfection  and  entireness;  but  when  the  little  pink 
sack  is  on,  and  that  sunshine  of  hair  is  tossed  down 
over  it,  like  the  golden  over  the  rose  in  a  fair  sun 
set,  —  then,  if  I  am  ever  to  take  author's  privilege, 
and  give  you  a  peep  at  any  picture  you  could 
2*  c 


34  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

not  have  without  me,  it  becomes  nly  duty  to  let 
you  in. 

Rachel's  hair  "  did  itself."  It  rippled  and  poured 
over  her  shoulders  like  an  amber  waterfall,  with  all 
the  million  little  braided  lines  in  it*  that  curl  and 
twist  in  running  water;  and  the  comb  stroked 
through,  just  proving  that  it  was  not  a  tangle,  but 
leaving  every  little  curl  and  twist  to  reassert  itself 
in  its  wake,  precisely  as  the  running  water  would 
if  you  drew  your  fingers  through  it.  And  then 
Rachel  gathered  it  all  up  in  her  two  little  hands, 
that  had  to  clutch  and  grasp  to  do  it,  and  gave 
it  a  turn  one  way,  and  set  in  a  little  trident  of 
shell  to  hold  it,  and  after  that  a  turn  another 
way,  burying  the  tiny  comb,  and  now  a  long, 
slender  hairpin  was  pushed  in ;  and  so  round  and 
round,  here  and  there,  caught  and  looped  and  fast- 
ened just  as  it  seemed  to  be  determined  to  go, 
until  it  was  one  beautiful,  bewildering,  shining 
heap,  lying  gracefully  around  the  natural  curves 
of  her  head,  and  dropping  with  a  lovely,  glisten- 
ing shimmer  about  her  brows  and  temples.  You 
can't  do  it  with  tails  and  cushions  and  hot  slate- 
pencils,  and  you  needn't  try ;  Rachel  Holley  just 
had  that  hair,  and  it  was  a  piece  of  her.  Jane 
Burgess's  was  pretty  in  its  soft,  modest,  shadowy 
smoothness.  Why  don't  you  all  keep  what  is  your 
own  ?  Then  everybody  would  have  something. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.      35 

A  blue  ribbon  was  drawn  through  to  finish,  and 
tied  in  a  little  butterfly  bow  up  high  among  the 
gold,  on  the  left  side  ;  and  then,  after  the  dainty 
fingers  had  been  into  the  basin  again,  the  dazzle- 
blue  merino  went  on,  and  the  snowy  down  border- 
ings  were  fastened  about  throat  and  arms,  and  — 
there  was  Rachel  Holley  ready  for  the  sleigh-ride. 
And  what  do  you  think  will  become  of  Mark  Hins- 
dale  now  ? 

Poor  little  Rachel !  I  had  to  bring  you  up  here 
to  see  her,  without  telling  you  why.  You  must 
needs  have  had  this  one  unspoiled  glimpse  of  her 
glad  beauty.  Even  Mark  Hinsdale  was  not  to  see 
it  after  all,  — just  so,  —  to-night. 

She  turned  round  with  her  candle  in  her  hand, 
to  go  downstairs.  A  rapid  step  came  up  as  she 
opened  her  door.  Roxana's  frightened  face  met 
hers. 

"  O  Rachel,  for  the  land's  sake  hurry  down ! 
Your  ma !  " 

Mrs.  Holley  was  "  taken  faint,"  as  Roxana 
called  it.  They  gave  her  brandy,  and  sent  the 
boy,  Silas,  for  the  doctor.  Rachel  rubbed  her 
mother's  hands,  and  sent  Roxy  for  the  hot  brick 
from  the  oven,  to  put  to  her  cold  feet.  She 
bathed  her  head  with  bay-water,  and  gave  her 
carefully  some  drops  of  hartshorn  to  smell  at. 
And  then,  while  she  came  slowly  back  to  some- 


36  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

thing  like  her  usual  frail,  delicate  life  again,  yet 
with  a  new,  strange  look  that  shot  a  fearful  intui- 
tion straight  to  Rachel's  heart,  and  made  it  seem 
an  unreckoned  duration  of  experience  since  she 
had  tied  on  her  blue  ribbon  so  unconsciously  there 
upstairs,  —  a  look  as  of  one  who  leaves  the  door, 
but  turns  back  for  a  thing  yet  to  be  fetched  or 
done,  —  Rachel  sat,  and  knelt,  and  stood,  by  or 
over  her,  tending,  and  listening,  and  whispering, 
and  making  little  loving  signs,  for  half  an  hour, 
alone  with  her,  while  they  waited.  For  Mrs.  Hoi- 
ley  had  feebly  motioned  to  Roxana  to  go  away. 

I  cannot  tell  you  of  that  half-hour.  It*was  a 
half-hour  between  two  dear  souls ;  a  little  time 
God  gave  them  to  live  in,  —  to  go  back  into  from 
either  side  and  meet  in,  as  the  heart  and  secret 
and  fulness  of  their  years  together,  by  and  by, 
when  they  should  be  outwardly  parted. 

There  are  points  of  experience  where  all  things 
gather.  Eternity  is  in  them.  They  are  like  the. 
three  short  years  of  the  Lord  Christ's  ministering 
to  the  world. 

When  Mark  Hinsdale  came,  Mrs.  Holley  had 
fallen  into  a  brief  sleep. 

Mark  thought  it  was  some  beautiful,  tender-sad 
angel  who  came  so  softly  through  the  shadow  of 
the  sitting-room  to  meet  him,  and  stood  in  the 
firelight  in  her  azure  robes  with  shining  borders. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHEE.     37 

For  there  was  something  glorified,  uplifted  above 
the  shock  and  the  fear,  in  Rachel's  face,  strong 
and  full  of  love  from  that  supreme  communion. 

"  Mother  is  going  to  die,"  she  said,  putting  her 
hand  in  Mark's,  and  raising  that  look,  that  he 
never  forgot,  to  his. 

"  Oh,  no ! "  he  said  with  the  first  pitying  im- 
pulse, keeping  hold  of  the  hand.  "  Is  she  worse  ? 
She  will  be  better  again,  as  she  has  been.  Don't 
be  frightened." 

"  I  'm  not  frightened.  I  see.  O  Mark !  "  she 
said  suddenly,  as  one  tender  heartbreak  from  their 
deep,  Ifrief  talk  came  over  her,  —  "she  said  —  she 
—  shook  me  once  —  when  I  was  a  little  child,  — 
and  she  asked  me  to  forgive  her !  " 

And  the  human  grief  broke  forth  in  passionate 
tears.  Mark  put  his  arm  around  her,  as  she  stood 
and  trembled  with  her  sobs. 

"  Don't  cry !  don't  cry,  Rachel ! "  was  all  he 
could  say  to  her. 

And  Dr.  Sylva  came  in  and  found  them  so. 

Squire  Holley  was  away  from  home,  attending 
to  some  law  business.  Instead  of  going  to  North 
Denmark,  Mark  Hinsdale  drove  his  fast  bay  colt 
alF  night  over  the  road  to  Hartford,  and  brought 
the  squire  back  next  morning  in  time  to  see  his  wife. 

The  next  time  Mark  saw  Rachel,  it  was  in  a 
black  dress  at  her  mother's  burial. 


38  BIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Dr.  Sylva  was  a  sympathetic  man^  and  a  bit  of  a 
friendly  old  gossip.  He  was  touched  and  interested 
by  what  he  had  seen,  and  he  could  not  help  talk- 
ing about  it.  He  told  how  good  Mark  Hinsdale 
had  been,  and  how  plain  it  was  that  all  was  set- 
tled between  him  and  Rachel.  "  And  the  sooner 
it 's  made  fast  the  better,"  he  said.  "  Squire  Hoi- 
ley  's  rich  enough  to  take  them  both  right  in  at 
home.  And  I  guess  that 's  the  way  it  will  be. 
He  won't  want  to  part  with  his  girl ;  and  yet  he  's 
no  kind  of  a  man  to  be  left  in  charge  of  her,  all 
alone,  though  he  's  first-rate  for  the  deestrict." 

And  that  was  the  way  that  everybody  came  to 
have  it  that  Mark  Hinsdale  and  Rachel  Holley 
were  engaged. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER. 


CHAPTER  V. 

TVTOBODY  knew  at  the  sleigh-ride  dance  what 
was  happening.  They  all  wondered  and 
wondered,  between  the  cotillons,  and  in  hands 
across,  and  up  and  down  the  reels,  what  had  be- 
come of  Mark  and  Rachel.  Some  thought  one 
thing,  and  some  another,  according  to  their  own 
characteristics.  Jeff  Fleming  said  Mark  was  in 
one  of  his  clouds  somewhere,  and  had  forgotten  to 
come  down.  Nettie  Sylva  guessed  they  had  had 
some  little  muss :  they  would  come  in  late,  maybe, 
with  some  excuse,  just  in  time,  perhaps,  for  the 
pairing-off.  Jane  quietly  remembered  Mrs.  Hoi- 
ley,  and  thought  she  might  have  needed  Rachel ; 
but  nobody  imagined  any  thing  like  the  truth. 
There  is  no  one  whom  all  the  world  looks  upon  as 
more  a  fixture  in  the  world,  than  a  confirmed 
invalid. 

Nettie  Sylva  had  tied  her  face  up  in  a  cloud, 
and  told  Horace  he  must  not  talk  to  her,  coming 
over ;  she  had  had  a  toothache  yesterday,  and  was 
afraid  of  it  again.  What  with  that,  and  dropping 


40  SIX  OF  ONE  JBY 

her  muff  out  of  the  sleigh  and  making  him  go  back 
for  it  through  the  snowdrifts,  and  taking  it  into 
her  head  to  carry  the  whip  and  touching  up  the 
gay  little  mare  with  it  almost  every  time  Horace 
did  say  any  thing,  she  got  over  the  ground,  accord- 
ing to  her  notion  of  it,  pretty  well.  The  rest  of 
the  programme  had  been  carried  out  very  nearly 
as  she  had  indicated  it  to  Jane.  She  had  been  a 
long  time  settling  the  exact  position  of  the  tea- 
roses  in  her  bright,  silky  crimps,  and  in  making 
them  "  stay  put ;  "  for  tea-rosebuds,  everybody 
knows,  are  the  loveliest  and  most  unmanageable 
of  blossoming  things,  —  they  are  so  tipsy  with 
their  own  rich  beauty ;  and,  by  the  time  she  came 
down  from  the  little  gallery  dressing-room  attached 
to  the  dancing-hall,  she  found  Horace  in  the  pas- 
sage below,  tolerably  cold,  and  in  a  fair  state  of 
provokableness.  Everybody  else,  nearly,  had  gone 
in. 

"  Have  you  been  ready  long  ?  "  she  asked 
sweetly,  taking  his  arm.  "  But  then  you  didn't 
have  tea-rosebuds  to  fix  in  your  hair !  Let 's 
make  haste  now :  they  '11  be  engaging  for  all  the 
dances,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  left  out  in  the 
cold." 

That  last  clause  was  a  sudden  impish  inspira- 
tion. 

"I  suppose  not.     Nobody  does,"  said  Horace, 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     41 

with  an  enunciation  as  if  his  words  were  just 
stiffening  with  frost  as  he  spoke  them,  and  were 
too  much  congealed  to  flow  further  after  those 
five. 

"  Why,  you  're  all  nipped  up  !  "  said  Nettie, 
turning  round  at  him.  "  Your  nose  is  blue. 
You  'd  better  go  right  to  the  fire,  and  get  warm.' 

And  with  that,  she  dropped  his  arm  as  they  got 
inside  the  door,  and  let  herself  be  surrounded,  at 
the  instant  of  his  half  withdrawal,  by  two  or  three 
eager  claimants  for  dancing  promises. 

The  second  dance,  and  the  third,  and  the  fourth, 
she  gave.  Nobody  asked  for  the  first,  of  course ; 
that  was  supposed,  according  to  sleigh-ride  eti- 
quette, to  be  Horace's. 

When  she  had  reached  as  far  as  five,  she  looked 
round  to  see  where  Horace  was.  He  was  stand- 
ing by  the  big  wood  fire,  half-way  down  the  hall ; 
warming  his  nose,  probably,  as  she  had  bidden 
him. 

"  Good  boy !  "  she  said  slyly  to  herself,  under 
her  breath,  and  laughed. 

Then  she  slipped  off,  quite  at  the  opposite  side, 
and  along  to  a  far  corner,  where  she  seated  her- 
self demurely. 

The  first  set  was  forming.  Clarissa  Dunmore 
was  standing  up  there  in  the  corner,  with  her 
brother  Elisha.  Nettie  got  behind  Miss  Dim- 


42  BIX  OF  ONE  BY 

more's  wide  skirts, — for  Clarissa  only  had  a  new 
best  dress  once  in  three  years,  and  wore  the  fashion 
out,  —  and  hid  herself.  She  chattered  with  Miss 
Clarissa  as  she  came  back  and  forth,  and  made 
her  miss  half  the  figures. 

"  Why  ain't  you  dancing  ?  "  was  Miss  Clarissa's 
natural  question. 

"  Oh,  I  'm  getting  ready  !  Hands  across  !  Why 
don't  you  mind?  There's  Nat  Kinsley,  wait- 
ing!" 

Nettie  knew  she  could  always  manage  Miss 
Clarissa. 

Clarissa  was  an  old  maid  and  didn't  know  it. 
She  had  never  stopped  to  think  about  it.  She  had 
only  had  four  best  dresses  since  she  began  to  keep 
house  for  her  brother  after  their  mother  died ;  and 
she  had  gone  about  with  him  to  all  the  sleigh-rides 
and  huskings  and  apple-bees,  ever  since,  quite 
naturally;  for  neither  of  them  had  anybody  else 
to  go  with.  Clarissa  thought  her  time  hadn't 
come,  if  she  thought  any  thing,  and  kept  on 
patiently ;  not  expecting  to  be  "  run  after  much," 
because  she  had  never  been  a  beauty ;  but  just 
accepting  things  as  they  were,  and  putting  a  piece 
of  daphne  odora,  off  her  big  bush,  into  her  back 
hair,  just  where  she  had  put  it  twelve  years  ago, 
and  setting  off  contentedly  with  Elisha  every  time 
there  was  a  merry-making,  and  seeing  it  all 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     43 

through,  with  him  to  depend  upon,  and  to  talk  it 
over  with  afterward. 

"  Elisha  was  real  clever  and  good  about  seein' 
to,"  she  said:  "she  .didn't  know  what  girls  did 
that  didn't  have  brothers." 

They  danced  as  much  as  they  wanted  to ;  for 
"  they  always  had  one  another,  if  nobody  else 
came  along."  And  they  really  supposed  they  had 
"been  to  the  party,"  as  much  as  anybody  else. 
Some  people  take  the  world  at  large  in  that  way,  • 
and  think  they  have  been  to  it  too. 

After  the  cotillon  was  over,  Nettie  scudded 
round  again,  and  got  on  to  the  opposite  side,  met 
the  girls,  Jane  Burgess  and  three  or  four  others 
whom  she  knew  best,  who  all  supposed,  of  course, 
that  she  had  been  dancing.  Then  she  came  up 
face  to  face  with  Horace  Vanzandt,  just  as  she 
meant  to  do. 

"Oh!"  she  cried.  "Why  where  have  you 
been  ?  I  didn't  see  any  thing  of  you  all  through 
the  set.  Have  you  got  warm  yet?  " 

"  I  hope  you  had  a  pleasant  dance,"  said  Horace 
grimly. 

"  Dance  !  why,  I  didn't  dance.  Of  course  not. 
I  sat  over  there  in  the  corner  all  the  time.  No- 
body asked  me.  I  haven't  had  a  soul  to  speak  to 
but  Clarissa  Dunmore  and  Elisha.  Pm  getting 
cold  now." 


44  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  Nettie  !  "  said  Horace,  in  a  low,  strong  voice, 
"  what  does  all  this  mean  ?  " 

"  I  don't  —  know  —  I'm  sifrre  I "  said  Nettie,  with 
wide-open  brown  eyes.  "  What  does  it  ?  I  —  sup- 
posed"— 

"What?" 

"  Well,  —  if  you  will  make  me  say  it,  —  that 
you  might  possibly  have  asked  me  to  dance,  your- 
self; and  so  I  waited." 

•  There  could  not  be  any  thing  more  utterly 
simple  than  Nettie's  look  lifted  up  to  Horace 
Vanzandt's  face. 

"  If  that  is  all,  come  and  dance  now,"  said 
Horace,  holding  out  his  hand,  with  a  very  grave 
face.  It  was  earnest  with  him :  he  could  not  stop 
for  jests,  scarcely  for  courtesies. 

"  Oh,  wow  I  'm  engaged !  For  this,  and  the 
next,  and  the  next,  and  the  next.  And,  besides, 
I  think  it  would  be  proper  to  say  '  sorry '  or 
'  please,'  or  something !  " 

And  Nettie  went  off  with  Jeff  Fleming.  "  Jeff 
was  bright,"  she  said:  "she  always  had  a  good 
time  with  Jeff  Fleming,"  she  told  Jane. 

Horace  Vanzandt  went  and  asked  Jane. 

Somehow,  when  Nettie  was  very  bad,  he  had  an 
impulse  toward  Jane  Burgess  for  friendly  comfort. 
Jane  knew  Nettie  so  well,  and  always  had  some- 
thing kind  and  excusing  to  say,  that  made  him 
feel  better. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     45 

"  I  can't  make  Nettie  out  to-night,"  he  said, 
while  he  and  Jane  waited  at  the  side. 

"You  never  can,"  said  Jane.  "That's  just 
what  she  means.  If  you  didn't  try  you  'd  do 
better." 

"  But  why  does  she  treat  me  so  ?  She  went  off 
and  made  me  think  she  had  been  dancing,  and  then 
came  back  and  put  me  in  the  wrong  because  I 
hadn't  asked  her.  She  makes  me  —  mad ;  and 
then  she  won't  give  me  any  excuse  for  a  quarrel ; 
nothing  to  take  hold  of,  I  mean." 

"Don't  look  for  it.  Take  it  as  if  it  were  all 
right.  It  is  only  a  part  of  the  frolic.  Nettie  is 
a  good  girl,  only  she  isn't  quite  ready  to  sober 
down.  You  mustn't  —  hurry  her." 

Jane  colored  up  as  she  said  this.  It  was  the 
nearest  to  a  taking-for-granted  of  Horace's  wish 
and  meaning  toward  Nettie,  that  she  had  ever 
come  to  in  any  of  their  tacit  confidences. 

They  had  to  chasse  now,  and  Horace  could  not 
say  any  more  until  the  figure  was  over.  He 
thought  what  a  nice  quiet  partner  Jane  was,  as  he 
came  back  to  her,  and  met  her  clear,  friendly  look 
and  pleasant  smile.  It  rested  him  to  be  with  her 
a  while.  She  was  like  fair,  level  road,  after  ups 
and  downs,  jolts  and  pitches.  But  then  that,  he 
supposed,  was  because  he  didn't  care  so  much. 
What  was  it  that  kept  him  beating  back  and  forth 


46  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

helplessly,  among  the  thorns  and  tangles  of  Net- 
tie's tricks  and  whims  ? 

"  I  wish  she  would  grow  more  like  you,  Jane. 
Can't  you  make  her  ?  You  are  together  so  much." 

"  You  wouldn't  like  her  half  so  well,"  said 
Jane,  smiling  at  his  question.  It  did  not  seem  so 
surprising  a  question  to  her,  doubtless,  as  it  would 
have  done  if  she  had  not  known  in  her  quiet  way 
that  she  was  a  pattern.  To  her  mind  there  was 
only  one  sort  of  woman  that  was  worth  while,  or 
that  ever  ought  to  be ;  and  she  meant  to  be  that 
woman  right  straight  through.  Of  course  Nettie 
would  be  better  if  she  could  make  her  a  little 
more  after  the  same  type ;  but  then  she  spoke 
truth  and  wisdom  in  saying  that  Horace  —  at  this 
stage  of  his  experience,  at  least  —  would  not  have 
liked  her  half  as  well. 

"  See  how  pretty  she  is  this  minute !  And 
sweet  and  happy  too :  there '  isn't  a  bit  of  real 
malice  in  it.  It 's  all  fun." 

Nettie  was  flying  out  across  the  hall  in  a  long 
gallopade  chasse",  her  color  bright,  her  dark  eyes 
like  two  winter  stars,  and  a  merry  gleam  of  glitter- 
ing teeth  between  the  red  parted  lips. 

She  came  quite  up  to  them  as  they  stood. 

"  I  shan't  have  a  .dance  left,"  she  said,  in  a  gay, 
quick  whisper  to  Jane,  as  she  gave  her  a  little 
whirl,  and  then  took  her  partner's  hand  again. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.  47 

"  If  anybody  else  wants  one,"  she  added,  over  her 
shoulder,  "  he  'd  better  make  haste.  But  it 's  a  reel 
next ;  and  I  won't  engage  for  reels,  ever  !  " 

"  You  heard  ?  "  said  Jane. 

"  Yes.     She  meant  me  to." 

"  Of  course  she  did.  That 's  the  good  of  her. 
She  has  kept  the  reel  on  purpose." 

"  She  always  keeps  the  reels.  She  likes  to  set 
them  scrambling.  And  I  won't  scramble."  For 
all  that,  he  got  beside  her  when  the  quadrille 
ended.  Jane  managed  it  partly,  perhaps,  in  choos- 
ing her  seat. 

"Will  you  dance  with  me  now?"  said  Horace, 
when  the  reel  was  called.  And  Nettie  gave  him 
her  hand  with  an  exquisite  little  docile,  nestling, 
good-child  movement  to  his  side.  Nettie  was  lovely 
all  through  that  reel,  and  the  next,  which  came  in 
two  dances  more.  "  I  always  like  my  best  dances 
in  the  middle  of  the  evening,"  she  said.  "  The  first 
ones  are  dreary."  And  Horace  grew  content  under 
her  smiles,  as  he  had  done  a  hundred  times  before, 
and  let  by-gones  be  by-gones,  as  Nettie  always  told 
him  he  ought ;  although  she  did  confess  to  Jane 
Burgess  that  the  by-gones  were  never  more  than 
twenty-four  hours  old  before  they  began  again. 

Jane  herself  could  hardly  tell  what  to  make  of 
Nettie,  when  she  declared  to  her  in  the  "join 
hands"  of  Money  Musk,  that  she  "didn't  more 


48  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

than  half  like  it,  after  all :  she  believed  if  he  would 
only  stay  mad,  once,  long  enough  to  give  her  a  real 
little  scare,  she  should  like  him  better  than  she  ever 
had  done  yet." 

"  But  he  knows  you  don't  mean  it.  He  could  see 
you  didn't,  the  minute  he  quieted  down.  Besides, 
I  told  him  so." 

"  You  did !  You  were  nicely  set  to  work !  Now 
I  shall  have  it  all  to  do  over  again  !  " 

She  did  it  in  the  pairing-off. 

The  pairing-off  was  the  last  dance  of  all.  Nettie 
had  been  down  to  supper,  —  and  I  wish  I  could  tell 
you  all  about  that  supper,  such  as  is  only  had  in  a 
country  tavern,  at  a  country  sleigh-ride ;  its  roast 
chickens  and  ducks,  its  whipped  creams  and  plum- 
cakes,  its  custards  and  quince  jellies,  its  nuts  and 
apples,  and  cheese  and  crullers ;  its  hot  coffee,  thick 
with  cream,  and  its  champagne  cider ;  its  regular 
sitting  down,  pair  and  pair ;  its  plentiful  helpings ; 
its  jokes  and  its  fortune-tellings  and  its  philopenas, 
with  apple-parings  and  apple-namings,  and  double 
almonds.  I  should  like  to  tell  you  all ;  but  there 
will  not  be  room  for  every  thing,  and  I  can't :  I  can 
only  tell  you,  as  I  began  to  do,  that  Nettie  behaved 
beautifully,  —  as  beautifully  as  Nature  and  little 
children  do  before  some  grand  outburst  of  mis- 
chief; and  she  came  up  again  radiant  and  benign, 
and  danced  the  "  Rustic  "  with  Horace,  with  Cla- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     49 

rissa  Dunmore,  whom  she  had  made  him  take  for 
his  other  partner.  And  Horace  said  to  himself  how 
good-natured  and  thoughtful  that  was  of  her  for  the 
poor  thing,  after  all. 

But  when  the  pairing-off  came ! 

That  is  a  round  dance  ;  not  what  we  call  a  round 
dance  here  in  the  city,  but  a  dance  formed  in  a  ring. 

No  one  takes  a  partner :  they  all  go  up  one  by  one 
and  take  places  independently,  —  a  young  man  and 
a  young  woman  alternately ;  though  I  will  not  say 
there  may  not  be  some  mutual  management  to  get 
tolerably  near  each  other  in  certain  cases.  Yet 
that  is  not  sure  to  avail,  either ;  for  it  rests  with 
the  manager  to  call  out  as  he  pleases,  "  Ladies  to 
the  right,  gentlemen  to  the  left !  "  or  the  reverse. 
And  then  follows  something  like  the  old  Swiss 
dance,  —  a  forward  and  back,  a  turning  round,  a 
passing  on ;  so  that,  one  after  another,  each  lady 
meets  every  gentleman.  And  as  they  meet,  —  by 
settled  agreement,  by  some  quick,  mutual  under- 
standing, or  by  deliberate  asking  and  assent,  as  the 
case  may  be,  —  they  pair  off,  here  and  there  ; 
chasse  together  out  from  the  ring  and  round  the 
circle,  and  to  places,  successively,  in  a  long  line 
gradually  formed  from  the  top  of  the  room,  for 
contra-dance  ;  and  then  a  merry  hands-across,  down, 
the  middle  and  up  again,  down  the  outside  and  up 
the  middle,  —  a  scamper  to  the  end,  —  and  all  re-t 


50  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

peated,  as  long  as  any  couple  cares  to  keep  it  up, 
finishes,  with  its  gay  tumult,  the  evening. 

Horace  Vanzandt  placed  himself  in  the  ring  next 
but  three  to  Nettie.  Nat  Kinsley,  Elisha  Dunmore, 
and  Jo  Greenleaf  were  between.  She  wouldn't  take 
either  of  them,  he  thought. 

But  Jeff  Fleming  gave  the  word,  "  Ladies  to  the 
left !  "  and  behold  the  whole  circle  was  between 
them  !  He  could  only  trust  now  to  her  love  of  fun 
and  dancing,  and  the  likelihood  of  her  coquetting 
all  round  the  set  before  she  took  up  with,  any. 

He  watched  at  every  turn ;  she  made  seven  or 
eight,  and  then  she  met  Jeff  Fleming.  How  she 
did  it  nobody  knew,  of  the  three  most  interested  ; 
least  of  all,  perhaps,  Jeff  himself,  who  certainly  had 
thought  of  nothing  until  that  moment  but  of  look- 
ing out  for  Jane.  But  just  as  he  gave  his  hands  to 
Nettie,  in  the  turn,  he  met  a  sudden,  shy,  merry, 
mischievous,  wistful  little  glance  —  he  was  con- 
scious of  the  least  possible  lingering  as  they  came 
around,  —  of  a  little  tremulous  poise  of  her  pretty 
figure ;  their  eyes  encountered  again,  with  a  flash 
of  fun  in  both ;  and  away  out  to  the  far  side  with 
a  sweep,  down  again  toward  the  lessening  circle 
around,  and  up  to  the  head  of  the  hall  triumphant- 
ly, the  naughty  couple  ran  away  with  each  other 
before  the  assembled  eyes  of  Greyford  and  North 
Denmark. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.,  51 

Horace  made  a  few  turns  more,  and  then  broke 
out  of  the  ring  and  sat  down.  That,  also,  the 
dancers  were  at  liberty  to  choose.  That  made  the 
more  fun.  Two  or  three  others  got  tired,  or  fore- 
saw that  it  might  be  policy,  and  did  the  same  ; 
Jane  paired  off  with  Elisha  Dunmore ;  and  Claris- 
sa, trotting  round  patiently  to  the  end,  expecting 
nothing  but  the  dance,  was  left  out,  odd,  at  last ; 
and,  nothing  troubled,  went  quietly  off  to  the  dress- 
ing-room, to  find  her  hood  and  rubbers  comfortably 
before  the  crowd  came  up. 

Down  at  the  door,  when  all  was  over,  Horace 
met  Nettie  Sylva,  in  her  wraps,  nothing  visible  in 
her  feue  but  two  brilliant,  provoking  eyes. 

"  I'm  so  sorry,  Horace  !  but  I  don 't  dare  ride  in 
that  cutter  again.  My  toothache  has  come  back ; 
and  so  I'm  going  with  Mr.  Dunmore  in  his  chaise- 
top.  You'll  take  Clarissa,  won't  you  ?  " 


52  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER   VI. 

A  LETTER. 

NEW  YORK,  Dec.  1,  1870. 

T^EAR  NETTIE, —  I  think  I  was  right  in 
leaving  Greyford  without  giving  you  notice. 
The  fact  is,  if  I  had  told  you,  I  am  afraid  I  should 
not  have  come.  You  have  great  power  over  me ; 
so  much  that  I  have  run  away  from  it.  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  submit  any  longer  to  be  treated  as 
you  treat  me,  even  by  one  whom  I  admire  as  much 
as  you,  and  of  whom  I  think  as  much  as  I  do  of 
you.  And  I  found  that  I  was  man  enough  to 
quietly  pack  up  and  go ;  and  so  I  did. 

Now  that  I  am  here,  and  established,  it  is  right 
again  that  I  should  tell  you  about  it.  And  still  I 
am  conscious  that  you  will  perhaps  be  displeased, 
and  will  not  care  to  know.  However,  I  am  assist- 
ant book-keeper  at  Fy lings  &  Co.'s  Works.  They 
do  many  kinds  of  manufacturing  in  iron,  and  they 
rent  parts  of  their  building,  together  with  the  use 
of  steam-power,  to  mechanics ;  so  that  the  fact  is, 
the  place  is  a  sort  of  paradise  to  me.  If  I  should 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.     53 

ever  go  to  heaven,  I  sometimes  fancy  I  shall  find 
my  part  of  it  fitted  up  with  all  kinds  of  machinery 
and  tools,  one  eternal  buzz  of  gearing  and  belts, 
and  lathes  and  planers,  and  all  manner  of  artificers 
in  brass  and  iron.  My  patron  saint  is  St.  Tubal 
Cain,  I  guess.  I  have  already  scraped  acquaint- 
ance with  a  wiry  little  man,  with  great,  thoughtful 
eyes,  who  is  working  all  day,  and  thinking  all  day 
and  all  night  too,  upon  a  new  type-setting  and 
distributing  machine. 

I  have  seen  Rachel  two  or  three  times.  Poor 
girl !  She  was  always  so  bright  and  happy  that  I 
never  imagined  she  had  such  depth  and  intensity 
of  feeling.  And  her  mother  had  been  ill  so  long, 
and  her  hold  on  life  was  so  very  frail,  that  I  should 
have  reasoned  that  her  departure  would  have  been 
a  comfort  rather  than  a  sorrow.  But  all  the  way 
from  Greyford  she  was  so  sad  and  silent  that  I 
could  not  talk  to  her.  And  when  last  evening 
I  said  something  about  her  mother,  she  trembled 
so  much  and  cried  so  much  that  I  was  frightened. 
I  cried  a  little  too.  I  don't  know  but  I  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  it,  but  I  never  yet  saw  tears  of  real 
sorrow  without  contributing  a  few.  I  don't  re- 
member crying  on  my  own  account,  either,  since 
I  was  small  enough  to  cry  at  being  whipped.  I 
don't  know  why  it  was,  but  I  somehow  felt  that 
in  some  way  or  other,  something  about  Mark  had 


54  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

been  the  reason  of  Rachel's  leaving  Greyford. 
And  yet  I  can't  see  why;  for  everybody  was 
noticing  how  kind  Mark  was,  and  how  suitable  it 
would  be  if  they  should  be  married  at  once  and 
go  to  the  Squire's  to  live.  But  she  would  not  say 
a  word  about  Mark ;  and  though  I  can't  tell  what 
made  me  know,  I  did  know,  that  she  did  not  wish 
to.  I  am  sorry  for  Mr.  Holley,  left  alone  in  the 
old  house.  But  then  he  is  one  of  those  who  find 
a  great  deal  to  satisfy  their  minds  in  their  busi- 
ness ;  so  he  will  do  very  well. 

I  have  read  this  over.  I  have  left  out,  I  guess, 
the  things  I  would  have  liked  best  to  say.  But, 
Nettie,  I  don't  know  how  you  would  take  them. 
And,  I  am  waiting  to  hear  what  you  say  to  me.  I 
suppose  I  have  everybody's  ordinary  privilege  to 
say  that  I  am 

Truly  yours  —  haven't  I  ? 

HOEACE  VANZANDT. 


THE  ANSWER. 

HARTFORD,  Dec.  7,  1870.  . 

DEAR  HORACE,  —  Your  letter  was  forwarded 
to  me  from  Greyford,  and  so  I  could  not  answer 
any  sooner. 

It  was  extremely  kind  of  you  to  reveal  to  me 
the  place  of  your  abode,  in  case  I  should  be  anxious 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     55 

to  know.  I  should  be  very  proud  to  believe  that 
I  had  so  much  influence  over  you  as  you  kindly 
intimate.  But  if  your  letter  can  be  relied  upon, 
you  will  not  miss  me  very  much  as  long  as  you 
can  have  a  machine  to  turn  round  and  round. 

I  was  not  so  much  surprised  to  hear  of  your 
going  to  New  York  as  if  you  had  never  spoken  of 
it  to  me.  And  I  do  not  know  why  you  should 
imagine  that  I  would  have  remonstrated  with  you. 
You  write  as  if  I  were  a  kind  of  evil  genius  whom 
you  found  it  necessary  to  avoid.  This  I  assure 
you  is  a  mistake.  I  am  truly  your  friend.  But  I 
hope  I  should  not  have  distressed  you  by  crying 
as  Rachel  did,  if  you  had  been  brave  enough  to 
come  and  tell  me  what  you  were  going  to  do. 

As  you  have  told  me  about  your  situation,  I 
suppose  I  may  tell  you  about  mine.  I  am  staying 
with  my  Aunt  Helen,  helping  her  keep  house,  and 
taking  lessons  in  singing  and  the  piano,  besides 
hers  in  housekeeping.  Aunt  Helen  wanted  me  to 
come,  and  Mrs.  Sylva  did  not  object,  though  father 
did. 

It  will  always  give  me  pleasure  to  hear  from 
you.  NETTIE. 

P.  S.  Jeff  Fleming  is  in  Hartford  now.  He 
came  with  me.  He  is  real  good  company.  He  is 
clerk  in  a  store,  and  they  say  he  has  been  making 
some  first-rate  speeches  before  the  Sons  of  Tern- 


56  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

perance.  Nobody  knew  he  was  so  smart  —  except 
me.  I  always  said  he  was  bright.  He  is  quite 
attentive,  which  is  very  proper  to  his  old  friend, 
all  alone  here  in  the  busy  city. 

I  am  so  glad  you  are  comforting  poor  Rachel. 
She  is  so  good  that  I  only  wonder  she  should  need 
any  comfort.  When  you  see  her  give  her  my  best 
love. 

You  will,  perhaps,  be  interested  to  hear  that 
Mark  Hinsdale  has  gone  to  Boston  to  live,  and 
that  Jane  Burgess  has  gone  there  too.  I  don't 
know  exactly  what  they  are  doing ;  but  no  doubt 
Rachel  will  hear  from  Mark,  and  tell  you  all  about. 
Jeff  Fleming  has  not  heard  yet,  except  that  Jane 
is  visiting  her  sister,  Mrs.  Bardies,  and  is  having 
a  kind  of  holiday.  It  is  as  if  a  mine  had  exploded 
under  us  six,  and  flung  us  helter-skelter,  six  ways 
for  Sundays.  I  suppose  it  will  all  be  right,  how- 
ever; fates  will  be  served  out  to  us,  I  guess,  at 
the  rate  of  about  six  to  the  half-dozen.  That  will 
be  just  right :  a  fate  apiece.  NETTIE. 

Now,  the  intelligent  reader  will  have  observed 
that  these  two  letters  were  like  the  stories  of  for- 
ests and  enchantments  drear,  which  Milton  speaks 
of,— 

"  Where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the  ear." 

They   afforded  no  bad   specimens,   in  fact,   of 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.  57 

topics  which  shine  by  their  absence.  Horace  did 
not  tell  Nettie  that  he  was  grieved  by  her  conduct 
or  sorry  for  his  own.  Nor  did  Nettie  tell  any 
thing  of  the  kind  to  Horace.  Like  two  Yankees, 
as  they  were,  they  were  talking  about  the  weather 
and  the  crops,  instead  of  coming  right  down  to 
their  bargain. 

Horace's  letter  did  not  surprise  Nettie  particu- 
larly, for  he  had  often  talked  to  her  of  his  schemes 
of  fortunes  to  be  made  in  the  city ;  but  hers  did 
somewhat  startle  him,  and  it  annoyed  him  too. 
But  it  was  his  own  fault ;  for  he  had  written,  in 
his  displeasure,  a  stiffish  and  rather  presuming 
letter,  to  tell  the  truth.  What  business  had  he  to 
assume  that  it  was  such  a  mighty  concern  of  hers 
whether  he  left  Greyford  or  not  ?  And  then  the 
innuendo,  twice  over,  that  she  must  profess  a  deep 
interest  in  his  goings-on  or  else  he  wouldn't  say  a 
word  about  them !  It  was  not  a  very  judicious 
piece  of  diplomacy,  truly. 

If  it  had  told  the  whole  truth,  however,  instead 
of  telling  not  half,  but  one-third  of  it,  so  to  speak, 
it  would  have  been  still  less  judicious ;  that  is, 
always  supposing  that  Master  Horace  had  intended 
to  propitiate.  But  the  young  gentleman  had 
thought  fit  to  conceal  from  Nettie  a  still  more  strik- 
ing expression  of  that  emotional  sympathy  which 
he  had  described  than  that  which  he  did  mention. 
3* 


58  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

The  fact  is,  that,  quite  carried  away  by  poor 
Rachel's  tears,  Horace  had  at  parting  quietly  put 
his  arm  round  her  and  kissed  her,  —  on  the  fore- 
head, I  mean,  in  a  beautifully  brotherly  way  ;  and 
the  poor  girl,  nervous  and  fluttered,  did  not  think 
of  resisting. 

In  short,  though  Horace  was  not  exactly  con- 
scious of  it,  his  letter  was  cold  and  irritating,  well 
calculated  to  provoke  Nettie,  who,  whatever  she 
might  be  in  the  depths  of  her  nature,  was  a  suf- 
ficiently high-spirited  and  independent  puss,  little 
disposed  to  be  ordered  about  by  anybody.  The 
proof  of  this,  indeed,  had  already  come  to  pass 
before  Horace  wrote,  although  he  knew  nothing  of 
it;  and  not  mistrusting  any  such  state  of  things, 
this  it  was  which  startled  him  as  aforesaid. 

One  fine  day,  then,  a  short  time  after  the  even- 
ing of  the  dance  at  North  Denmark,  Dr.  Sylva 
brought  home  the  news  of  Horace's  departure, 
with  a  good  deal  of  perturbation  in  his  kindly  old 
heart  as  to  its  bearings  upon  his  daughter's  happi- 
ness. He  gave  it  first  to  his  wife,  along  with  an 
open  letter,  and  he  requested  the  good  lady  to 
transfer  the  two  to  Nettie  ;  for  he  had  a  vague  idea 
that  where  there  's  any  thing  uncomfortable,  women 
should  be  dealt  with  by  women.  N.  B.  It 's  a 
great  mistake ! 

Mrs.  Sylva  was  a  little  hampered  by  considera- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     59 

tions  like  these  about  either  happiness  or  circum- 
spection ;  being  one  of  those  well-meaning  and 
thick-skinned  persons  who  blurt  right  out  what- 
ever occurs  to  them  to  say,  and  look  with  the  most 
honest  surprise  at  any  one  who  talks  about  hurting 
people's  feelings.  She  marched  straightway  to  the 
foot  of  the  stairs,  and  bawled  out,  — 

"  Nettie  !  -Nettie  !  here  's  Horace  Vanzandt  he  's 
gone  to  New  York  'long  with  Rachel  Holley,  n; 
here 's  a  letter  for  you  f  'm  Hartford  !  " 

Nettie,  busy  in  her  own  room,  felt  her  heart 
give  a  jump,  and  then  it  sank  with  that  painful 
lost  feeling  that  sudden  bad  news  brings.  But  as 
she  was  alone,  nobody  saw  her;  and  she  turned 
first  pale  and  then  red ;  and  the  tears  filled  her 
eyes,  and  she  succeeded  in  preventing  them  from 
running  over;  and  it  was  with  a  delay  scarcely 
perceptible  that  she  ran  downstairs  and  received 
the  letter,  answering  her  step-mother's  communi- 
cation 'very  composedly  with,  — 

"  Well,  Horace  Vanzandt  has  been  talking  long 
enough  about  going,  and  it 's  time  he  went,  I  'm 
sure ! " 

She  very  soon  read  her  aunt's  letter,  and  very 
promptly  accepted  its  invitation,  much  against  the 
wishes  of  the  worthy  doctor.  But  Nettie  argued 
with  much  briskness  and  force  that  this  was  ex- 
actly the  occasion  she  had  been  waiting  for  to  take 


60  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

some  finishing  lessons  in  singing  and  on  the  piano, 
and  moreover  in  the  ways  of  the  "  Old  Hartford 
Housekeepers ; "  a  generation  of  ancient  dames 
who  are  traditionally  reported  to  have  possessed 
mighty  secrets  of  the  kitchen  and  of  the  pantry, 
as  efficacious  in  their  way  as  those  Runic  rhymes 
which  could  cleave  mountains  and  shiver  good 
steel  swords. 

We  will,  however,  let  her  get  to  Hartford  by 
herself,  — -  it  is  a  safe  and  easy  journey,  —  while  we 
communicate  to  the  reader  the  experiences, 
indispensable  to  the  understanding  of  the  re- 
mainder of  our  tale,  of  Horace  and  Rachel  in 
New  York. 


A  great  city  is  a  great  solitude.  Within  it, 
little  settlements  grow  up  here  and  there,  as  in  a 
new  country,  of  those  who  are  neighbors  by  loca- 
tion, and  who  do  or  may  become  acquaintances  or 
friends  by  intercourse.  Sometimes  these  are  es- 
tablished in  some  group  of  houses  not  very  far 
apart  from  each  other ;  sometimes  the  whole  is 
included  under  one  roof,  like  the  nests  of  the 
sociable  grossbeaks  that  we  used  to  read  about  in 
the  natural  history. 

These  single-roof  birds' -nests  are  sometimes 
found  in  boarding-houses ;  and  it  happened  that 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     61 

our  two  Connecticut  young  folks  drifted  into  one 
where,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  all  the  birds  in 
their  little  nests  agreed.  For  it  is  too  often  that 
we  see  the  shameful  sight  (we  beg  good  Doctor 
Watts's  pardon  for  imbedding  one  of  his  "in- 
spired poems,"  as  some  admiring  divine  calls  them, 
into  our  poor  flat  prose)  of  all  the  children  of 
such  a  family  falling  out  and  chiding  and  fight- 
ing. 

People  in  the  city,  again,  and  things  in  the  city, 
are  like  those  in  the  country,  with  the  effects  of 
density  and  excitement  superadded.  They  are 
"  fired  up "  very  high  by  the  sharp  stimulus  of 
their  purposes  and  the  further  stimulus  of  the 
competition  which  makes  every  day  a  fight  — 
not  merely  a  struggle,  but  a  fight  —  for  life. 
They  are  magnetized,  too,  each  by  all  the  others. 
At  night,  from  miles  away  on  the  Palisades  or 
down  the  Bay,  you  can  see  a  dusky  red  glare  that 
caps  the  whole  of  the  great  city  like  a  low-lying 
lurid  cloud  brooding  down  upon  it.  It  is  the  gen- 
eralized result  and  remainder  of  the  millions  of 
lights  that  are  burning  there,  and  that  fill  all  the 
air  above  them  with  this  red  glow.  Exactly  sucli 
a  lurid,  dim,  hot  glow  of  mental  and  physical  ex- 
citement incessantly  broods  over  the  city. 

Now,  the  condition  of  things  in  which  Horace 
and  Rachel  found  themselves  was  a  twofold  state. 


62  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

They  underwent  the  excitement  of  New  York, 
and  were  of  course  in  more  or  less  danger  from  it. 
Many  of  the  places  of  abode  which  were  suited  to 
their  means  would  for  various  reasons  have  con- 
centrated and  re-enforced  this  excitement  and  this 
danger.  Even  as  it  was,  they  did  not  escape  entire- 
ly from  it.  It  happened  that  certain  countervailing 
influences,  together  with  such  resisting  qualities  as 
the  two  young  persons  possessed  within  themselves, 
saved  them  from  any  serious  harm. 

It  was  Rachel  who  had  told  Horace  where  to 
look  for  his  city  home. 

"  Come  to  Mrs.  Worboise's  with  me,"  she  had 
said.  "  I  shall  go  there ;  and,  if  you  don't  like, 
then  you  can  go  away  after  a  little  while." 

So  he  went.  No  danger  that  he  should  go 
away  !  Poor  Mrs.  Worboise  !  Her  difficulty  was, 
that  she  could  not  make  people  go  away.  As  long 
as  he  staid  in  New  York  he  abode  with  the  plump, 
laughing,  crying,  soft-hearted  motherly  baby  of  a 
woman ;  and  if  he  were  to  live  there  for  centuries, 
he  would  never  have  thought  of  going  away,  nor 
for  ten  thousand  years.  Indeed,  Jim  Fellows, 
then  a  reporter,  who  was  staying  there  at  the 
time,  used  to  shock  the  two  serious  boarders,  Miss 
Doddle  and  Mrs.  Pogey,  every  little  while,  by  sing- 
ing to  the  piano-forte  in  the  parlor  a  naughty  parody 
on  a  good  Methodist  camp-meeting  hymn  :  — 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     63 

• 
When  we  've  been  here  ten  thousand  years, 

A  stuffing  just  like  fun, 
Each  greedy  sinner  will  eat  more  dinner 

Than  if  he'd  just  begun. 

"  irou  '11  surely  be  bankrupt,  dame,"  Fellows 
would  say.  "  No  human  being  can  set  such  a 
good  table  and  take  such  care  of  boarders  as  you 
do  and  not  be  ruined." 

And  Mrs.  Worboise  would  laugh  her  jolly,  musi- 
cal laugh,  as  cheery  as  a  schoolgirl's,  despite  her 
fifty  years  and  widowhood,  and  say,  oh,  she  guessed 
not ! 

"  But  you  know  you  will,"  persevered  the  teas- 
ing youth,  on  one  of  these  occasions,  not  long  after 
Rachel  and  Horace  had  enlisted  under  her  banner : 
"  how  much  does  that  pompous  old  Judge  De  For- 
est owe  you  now  ?  Four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars, 
isn't  it?" 

"  I  do  wish  he  would  do  something  for  me,"  said 
Mrs.  Worboise,  "  that's  a  fact.  He  promises  to  pay 
half  next  Saturday,  though." 

"  Mrs.  Worboise,"  said  Fellows,  lifting  his  fore- 
finger at  the  landlady  in  a  stern  and  awful  manner, 
"  now  answer  me  a  straight  question,  upon  your 
conscience  and  honor.  Hasn't  he  made  you  that 
very  promise  every  week  for  three  months?  — 
what  ?  " 

Poor  Mrs.  Worboise  blushed  as  rosy  as  the  even- 


64  SIX  OF  ONE   BY 

ing  clouds.  She  had  one  of  those  very  fine,  clear- 
tinted,  transparent  skins  that  never  grow  muddy 
nor  rough,  and  her  cheeks  were  as  smooth  as  a 
plump  little  girl's,  and  she  blushed  as  easily. 
Besides,  she  was  caught.  Fellows,  a  very  per- 
spicacious personage,  had  hit  upon  the  exact  nature 
of  the  Judge's  financial  relations  with  Mrs.  Wor- 
fcoise :  they  had  caused  the  poor  landlady  many  a 
secret  tear,  and  many  an  unconcealed  one  too,  for 
that  matter ;  for  she  cried  at  least  as  easily  as  she 
laughed.  She  laughed  now  ;  but  there  was  a  per- 
ceptible uneasiness  in  the  laugh,  and  she  said,  with 
an  effort,  — 

"  Well,  Mr.  Fellows,  if  all  my  boarders  were  as 
honest  and  regular  as  you  are,  in  spite  of  all  your 
naughty  words,  I  should  get  along  very  well." 

"  Naughty  words,  indeed  !  "  responded  the  young 
gentleman  with  a  mighty  affectation  of  anger.  "  I 
defy  you  to  refer  to  a  single  improper  expression." 

"  But  you  are  very  irreverent,  Mr.  Fellows  !  " 

"  That 's  only  because  I  always  say  my  prayers  in 
secret,  dame,"  — he  almost  always  called  her  dame. 
"  And  you  do  take  cheating  so  easily,  that  it 's  evi- 
dent it 's  what  you  are  for.  It 's  a  great  shame  that 
I  don't  cheat  you ;  so  it  is.  Do  you  know,  Mrs. 
Worboise,"  he  continued,  suddenly  changing  his 
tone  to  one  of  embarrassment,  "•  I  am  greatly 
troubled  to  raise  some  money  to-day.  Could  you 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     65 

possibly  let  me  have  fifty  dollars  until  Saturday  ? 
It  would  save  me  from  real  distress." 

"Why,  yes  indeed,  you  dear  boy!"  cried  out 
Mrs.  Worboise ;  and  the  tears  stood  in  her  great 
soft  brown  eyes,  ready  to  run  over  at  his  trouble  ; 
"  and  more  too.  Here,"  —  and  she  drew  out  a 
pocket-book.  "  But  remember  Saturday  ;  for  in- 
deed I  must  have  it  then :  I  have  promised  it  on 
the  rent ;  and  I  'm  sadly  behind." 

She  was  eagerly  counting  out  the  bills  ;  but  Fel- 
lows burst  out  laughing,  whereat  she  looked  up  in 
the  most  innocent  surprise  imaginable,  and  saw 
that  she  was  deluded. 

"  Oh,  that 's  a  shame  !  "  she  said.  "  You  bad 
man  !  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  reporter  gravely,  "  no  doubt 
you  think  so.  That 's  just  like  a  woman.  But 
if  you  thought  some  of  your  money  had  been  a 
great  help  to  me,  nothing  would  make  you  think 
me  bad." 

"  Now,  stop  !  "  said  the  landlady.  "  Go  along. 
You  know  how  much  I  like  you.  But  I  want 
Rachel  to  help  me  now  about  some  sewing ;  and 
you  must  go  away." 


66  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER  VII. 

'"r>HE  winter  weeks  fled  rapidly  away,  their  days 
and  evenings  crowded  full  and  over-full  of 
duties  and  of  pleasures,  all  acting  with  strange 
new  stimulus  upon  the  clean  and  healthy  but  rural 
and  inexperienced  natures  of  Horace  and  Rachel. 
They  were  both  of  them  finely  organized,  mentally 
as  well  as  physically,  both  widely  awake  to  what- 
ever was  about  them,  and  sensitively  impressible  by 
it.  Horace,  moreover,  possessed  much  more  execu- 
tive ability  —  i.e.,  energetic  good  sense  —  than  is 
at  all  usual  or  to  be  expected  of  people  who  have 
the  gift  of  invention.  Rachel,  on  her  part,  had 
more  of  the  peculiar  faculties  which  make  a 
mechanic,  than  would  have  been  expected  of  a 
woman,  and  particularly  of  one  so  very  delicately 
fibred  and  of  such  introverted  mental  habits  and 
almost  excessively  spiritualizing  tendencies. 

As  for  Horace,  he  was  pretty  well  occupied  by 
his  book-keeping,  by  his  own  efforts  at  inventing, 
and  by  a  course  of  study  which  he  was  very  sen- 
sibly pursuing,  in  the  principles  of  natural  phi- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     67 

losophy  and  in  "the  history  of  mechanics  and  inven- 
tion. Still,  he  had  a  superabounding  flow  of  life 
and  spirits  ;  and  it  was  with  immense  eagerness 
and  curiosity  and  keen  enjoyment  that  he  ac- 
cepted all  sorts  of  suggestions  from  master  Jim 
Fellows,  to  go  and  see,  or  go  and  help  do,  one 
and  another  of  the  multifarious  things  and  occur- 
rences that  a  city  reporter  has  to  hunt  up,  or  wit- 
ness, or  join  in. 

Rachel's  situation  was  as  similar  to  his,  perhaps, 
as  a  young  woman's  could  be  under  the  circum- 
stances. She  had  not,  it  is  true,  such  exacting 
and  peremptory  and  regular  daily  duties  to  drive 
her,  as  those  which  bound  Horace  to  stand  at  a 
desk  and  compute  and  make  entries  so  many  hours 
every  day  on  pain  of  breach  of  contract,  reprimand 
from  a  stern  employer,  and  angry  expulsion  from 
a  respectable  and  comfortably  paid  post.  When 
young  women  do  have  such  external  forces  about 
them,  they  train  about  as  readily,  perhaps,  into 
what  are  called  "  business  habits,"  as  young  men ; 
but  they  seldom  have  them. 

She  was  nominally  making  a  winter's  visit  to 
Mrs.  Worboise,  who  was  what  may  be  called  a 
half-aunt.  That  is,  Mrs.  Worboise  was  half-sister 
to  Squire  Holley ;  so  that  if  she  had  had  a  daugh- 
ter, such  daughter  would  have  been  Rachel's  half- 
cousin  ;  the  two  girls  having  in  common  only  one 


68  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

instead  of  two,  out  of  their  eight  grandparents. 
Such  relationships  are  the  most  convenient  in  the 
world.  Brother  and  sister,  or  parent  and  child, 
are  under  a  tremendous  conventional  imperative  to 
be  fond  of  each  other,  -no  matter  how  entirely 
unsuitable  their  tastes  and  feelings  and  views  and 
pursuits  may  be.  But  half  cousinships,  for  in- 
stance, and  the  like,  can  be  made  just  as  much  or 
just  as  little  of  as  you  choose,  and  nobody  thinks 
of  saying  a  word. 

Not  that  Mrs.  Worboise  was  a  person  who  took 
such  things  into  account.  Indeed,  the  dear  little 
woman  was  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  pure  love 
and  tenderness,  which  flowed  forth  upon  good  and 
evil  almost  as  the  Lord's  warm  sunshine  falleth 
alike  upon  both.  She  had  been  for  a  long  time 
coaxing  Rachel  to  come  and  make  her  a  visit; 
indeed,  ever  since  the  decease  of  her  lord,  the  late 
Mr.  Worboise,  had,  by  a  natural  enough  train  of 
circumstances,  launched  her. upon  the  troubled 
and  perilous  career  of  a  New  York  boarding-house 
keeper's  life  —  for  which  she  was  just  as  fit  as  any 
other  little  soft  trustful  baby  would  be  to  rule  a 
gang  of  Apache  Indians  on  horseback  in  all  their 
war-paint  and  howls.  So  Rachel  had  delayed, 
and  perhaps  would  never  have  come,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  explosion,  as  Nettie  called  it  in  her 
letter  to  Horace,  which  had  tossed  their  little  six- 
fold company  in  such  diverse  directions. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     69 

Rachel,  although  she  had  all  those  rarer  beau- 
tiful qualities  which  belong  to  a  young  lady  in  a 
book,  still,  like  most  other  people,  had  a  good  deal 
of  human  nature  in  her.  She  therefore  in  the 
course  of  time  gradually  recovered  from  that  ex- 
treme grief  which  had  overcome  her  at  her  mother's 
death.  She  began  at  once  to  go  to  church  with 
Mrs.  Worboise,  who  had  been  brought  up  a  strict 
Calvinistic  Presbyterian,  and  she  was  speedily 
snapped  up  by  the  enterprising  Sunday-school 
superintendent,  who  happened  to  meet  both  the 
ladies  together,  as  a  teacher.  She  likewise  duti- 
fully attended  the  Thursday  evening  female  prayer- 
meeting  which  was  maintained  with  preternatural 
obstinacy  by  Mrs.  Dr.  Blewbly,  the  minister's  wife, 
along  with  a  few  other  of  the  sterner  class  of 
ladies,  against  the  terrific  onslaughts  of  Satan  as 
he  appeared  in  the  guise  of  obstructions  arising 
from  city  life.  Mrs.  Pogey  and  Miss  Doddle  were 
two  of  this  earnest  band ;  and  Mrs.  Worboise  used 
to  go  regularly  with  them,  because  they  took  her, 
and  Rachel  used  to  go  too,  because  Mrs.  Worboise 
asked  her. 

Being  as  aforesaid  a  dexterous  maiden,  Miss 
Rachel  quickly  came  into  great  request  in  the 
house  in  all  things  which  have  respect  unto  the 
cutting  and  fitting  of  dresses,  and,  indeed,  in  what- 
ever pertains  to  the  domain  of  needlework  generr 


70  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

ally.  She  was  already  a  pretty  good  workwoman 
on  the  sewing-machine,  and  she  at  once  assumed 
the  whole  charge  of  all  such  matters  for  Mrs. 
Worbbise  herself,  greatly  lightening  the  toils  of 
that  overloaded  and  hard-working  lady.  Indeed, 
it  was  really  only  fair  for  her  to  insist  upon  remit- 
ting to  Rachel  the  money  which  the  latter  ten- 
dered her  at  the  end  of  a  three-months'  sojourn, 
aside  from  the  fact  that  said  sojourn  was  nominally 
a  visit. 

Then  there  were  lectures  or  concerts  or  sights 
of  some  kind  every  evening.  Then  Miss  Rachel 
had  a  course  of  reading  too,  no  less  than  Horace ; 
though  it  was  one  which  some  would  judge  not  so 
useful.  Indeed,  that  practical  young  gentleman 
grumbled  a  little  in  a  careful  manner,  —  for  some- 
how he  found  himself  very  cautious  about  ex- 
pressing any  opposition  to  Rachel's  more  peculiar 
peculiarities  —  at  the  books  she  devoured  so  very 
eagerly.  So  would  most  of  us  perhaps.  Yet,  after 
all,  it  is  pretty  often  true  that  the  reading  which 
we  enjoy  most  does  us  most  good.  At  any  rate, 
other  reading  does  not  usually  do  us  much  good, 
for  usually  we  won't  read  it.  Rachel  read  eagerly 
a  number  of  biographies  and  other  works  by  and 
about  mediaeval  and  other  mysticists ;  Jacob  Bceh- 
men,  Madame  Guyon,  and  so  forth.  She  worked 
.through  a  good  deal  of  Swedenborg.  She  tried  a 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     71 

good  many  Spiritualist  publications,  but  could  not 
manage  more  than  two  or  three  of  them ;  and  she 
read  industriously  at  a  number  of  religious  and 
serious  periodicals  which  came  to  the  house.  And 
lastly,  she  adopted  a  shrewd  suggestion  of  Horace's 
own.  He,  being  a  bit  of  a  philosopher,  though  to 
tell  the  truth  his  dealings  with  Nettie  did  not 
always  seem  entirely  philosophical,  had  a  little 
theory  about  the  faculties  which  constitute  inven- 
tiveness ;  and  he  urged  Rachel  to  try  and  see 
whether  the  same  correct  eye  and  hand  that 
enabled  her  to  fit  a  waist  so  accurately,  and  to 
judge  so  unerringly  of  sizes  and  proportions  in 
cutting -patterns  and  economizing  materials,  would 
not  stand  her  in  good  stead  in  learning  decorative 
design. 

He  had  judged  truly.  The  very  suggestion  of 
the  Free  School  of  Design  at  Cooper  Union  made 
her  cheeks  flush  with  delight.  She  went  and 
returned  home  from  her  first  attendance  in  a  high 
state  of  pleasurable  excitement.  The  superin- 
tendent said,  she  reported,  that  she  did  capitally ; 
and  she  worked  away,  first  with  copies  and  so  on, 
until  she  had  mastered  the  handling  of  her  pencil, 
and  then,  with  constantly  growing  pleasure,  in 
doing  real  work  "from  the  round,"  and  from 
original  subjects ;  and  in  pursuance  of  another 
wise  suggestion  of  Horace's  she  began  therewith 


72  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

to  make  herself  acquainted  as  well  as  she  could 
with  the  history  of  her  new  avocation,  finding 
endless  pleasure  in  it ;  most  of  all,  by  the  way,  in 
tracing  out  those  numberless  connections  and 
interminglings  of  ornament  and  religion  which 
show  such  a  necessary  unison  'between  the  instinct 
of  beauty  and  the  instinct  of  worship. 

In  all  these  pursuits  of  Rachel's,  she  was  greatly 
aided  and  abetted  by  a  Mrs.  Erling,  who  was 
boarding  in  the  house.  Her  husband  was  extant, 
—  which  is  not  always  the  case  with  ladies'  hus- 
bands in  New  York,  —  but  he  was  hardly  seen  in 
the  house  at  all.  He  was  an  under-sized,  blackish- 
looking,  dried-apple  sort  of  man,  a  managing  clerk 
in  a  large  law-office,  very  busy  indeed,  and,  sooth 
to  say,  about  as  little  fitted  to  accompany  his  yoke- 
fellow along  the  pathways  which  she  preferred,  as 
could  well  be.  He,  however,  like  a  man  of  sense, 
made  the  best  of  it,  let  her  have  her  own  way,  and 
devoted  himself  wholly  to  his  own  affairs.  He 
hardly  said  a  word  at  breakfast,  shot  off  as  soon  as 
it  was  over,  and  was  never  seen  again  at  all  until 
next  morning  by  anybody  but  his  wife,  unless  he 
chanced  to  be  fallen  in  with  about  twelve  o'clock 
by  some  belated  inmate,  who  discovered  him  un- 
obtrusively entering  by  means  of  his  night-key, 
or  silently  gliding  upstairs  like  an  uncommonly 
short,  lean,  and  dark-complexioned  ghost. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     73 

Mrs.  Erling,  however,  was  strangely  different 
from  him.  She  was  a  frail  and  almost  translucent 
looking  woman,  still  young,  with  a  singularly  pure 
and  ethereal  face,  exceeding  delicate  in  outline, 
very  fair,  with  wonderfully  limpid,  soft  eyes, 
which  were  surprisingly  dark  for  one  all  whose 
other  physical  traits  imported  whiteness,  and 
which  therefore  impressed  you  with  the  idea  that 
they  belonged  to  sonle  one  else. 

She  was  every  way  such  a  person  as  you  may 
fancy  one  of  Baron  Reichenbach's  "sensitives" 
to  have  been,  but  without  the  positive  sickness 
which  seems  to  have  been  part  of  their  profes- 
sional outfit.  Without  being  exactly  a  "  Spiritua- 
list," this  Mrs.  Erling  was  profoundly  interested, 
and  pretty  well  read,  in  the  history  —  it  has  no 
philosophy  yet  —  of  that  singular  ghostly  invasion 
(to  admit  for  the  moment  its  own  claims)  during 
the  -last  quarter  of  a  century  which  has  chosen 
that  name,  and  also  in  a  great  range  of  reading  on 
related  subjects,  including  the  mystics  already 
spoken  of,  remote  inquiries  about  the  earliest 
heretics  and  heretical  sects,  Gnostics  and  Mani- 
cheans,  for  instance,  the  purer  heathen  religions, 
magic,  and  so  on.  Rachel  was  naturally  disposed 
to  the  wondering  part  of  religious  experiences, 
and  of  course  found  herself  very  "ready  to  follow 
Mrs.  Erling  through  her  spiritual  old  curiosity  shop. 


74  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

At  the  same  time,  her  whole  religious  training, 
and  the  naturally  elevated  tone  of  her  own 
thoughts,  kept  her  awake  to  the  immeasurably 
superior  purity,  grandeur,  and  wonderfulness  of 
Christianity.  Thus,  she  was  in  no  great  danger 
from  her  forays  into  wonderland,  though  you  could 
never  have  thought  it,  to  listen  to  the  heart-break- 
ing lamentations  of  Miss  Doddle  and  Mrs.  Pogey, 
who  were  morally  certain,  and  indeed  stated  in  so 
many  words,  that  Satan  was  evidently  lying  in 
wait  for  the  young  girl,  and  greatly  desiring  to 
have  her,  that  he  might  sift  her  as  wheat. 

While  time  fled  rapidly  as  aforesaid,  other  mat- 
ters, without  exactly  fleeing,  just  went  on  as 
usual.  Any  of  Mrs.  Worboise's  guests  who  chose, 
cheated  her ;  and  there  were  too  many  who  did. 
Among  these  was  old  Judge  De  Forest,  who  was 
a  disgraceful  old  humbug,  not  to  put  too  fine  a 
point  upon  it.  He,  as  well  as  Horace,  was  an  in- 
ventor, but  of  what,  nobody  seemed  distinctly 
to  know.  He  was  a  large,  portly,  red-faced 
man,  very  oily  and  voluble  of  speech,  habitually 
talking  of  such  astronomical  sounding  totals  as 
millions  of  dollars,  very  energetic  in  wordy  advo- 
cacy of  all  manner  of  what  are  called  "  advanced 
and  reformatory ' '  views ;  and  he  wore  a  frill  to 
his  shirt,  chewed  a  good  deal  of  tobacco  in  a 
rather  juicy  way,  and  walked  with  a  gold-headed 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     75 

cane.  He  had  some  place  or  places  which  he 
called  "  of  business,"  and  he  usually  went  to 
them.  He  spent  a  good  deal  of  time,  however, 
in  his  room,  —  he  had  one  of  the  best  rooms  in 
the  house,  —  at  work  at  what  seemed  like  mechan- 
ical drawing,  with  a  big  board,  great  sheets  of 
white  paper,  pencils,  and  things ;  but  at  any  hints 
respecting  the  said  employment,  he  pursed  up  his 
mouth  with  great  dignity,  and  assumed  an  air  of 
haughty  reserve  quite  wonderful  to  see,  only  in- 
timating that  it  was  impossible  to  discuss  the 
higher  secrets  of  science  with  ordinary  folks. 

Naturally  enough,  living  so  near  together,  and 
with  so  much  that  was  in  common  in  their  ways 
of  thinking,  Horace  and  Rachel  became  more  and 
more  intimate,  and  more  confidential  and  unre- 
served in  exchanging  thoughts.  Rachel's  unvary- 
ing sweetness  of  temper,  and  her  unconscious 
unworldliness,  diffused  around  her  an  atmosphere 
of  rest  which  was  exquisitely  delightful  to  the 
young  man,  worried  and  as  it  were  storm-tossred 
beyond  expression  as  he  had  so  often  been  with 
the  turbulent  unreasonableness  of  Nettie  Sylva. 
His  correspondence  with  this  latter  young  lady, 
as  may  have  been  conjectured,  had  much  the 
qualities  after  which  Master  Slender  aspired  in 
his  proposed  marriage  relation  with  Miss  Anne 
Page;  there  was  no  great  love  in  the  beginning 


76  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

(of  the  correspondence,  of  course),  and  it  pleased 
Heaven  to  decrease  it  upon  better  acquaintance. 
It  dwindled  rapidly ;  and  indeed  quickly  became 
practically  extinct,  yet  without  either  amicable 
explanation  or  unkind  word.  The  fact  is,  like  the 
seed  in  the  parable,  because  it  .had  no  root,  it 
withered  away. 

So  Horace  waited  on  Rachel  whenever  she 
wanted  an  escort,  and  spent  very  many  pleasant 
hours  in  reading  or  talking  with  her  in  the  parlor 
or  in  Mrs.  Worboise's  own  neat  little  sitting-room. 
She  was  as  glad  of  his  company  as  he  was  of 
hers;  and  he  found  a  new  and  keen  pleasure  in 
seeing  the  dainty  tact  with  which  she  used  to 
manosuvre  to  escape  from  Jim  Fellows  or  from  the 
Judge,  either  as  conversation-mate  or  escort,  and  V 
to  shelter  herself  under  the  wing  of  him,  Horace. 
After  some  narrow  escapes  in  such  enterprises  as 
these,  from  dilemmas  which  would  have  entailed 
either  direct  fibs  or  open  refusals,  Miss  Rachel 
bethought  herself  of  a  device  that  is  old  enough, 
no  doubt,  but  which  Horace  happened  not  to  have 
thought  of;  and  it  gave  him  a  degree  of  pleasure 
whose  depth  surprised  himself.  Perhaps  there  is 
no  human  bliss  more  inexpressible  than  that  of 
him  to  whom  a  lovely  woman  unconsciously  re- 
veals that  she  prefers  him.  What  Rachel  pro- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     77 

posed  was  an  engagement.  Not  that,  reader ; 
another  sort.  It  was  a  standing  prior  engagement 
as  escort ;  so  that  she  might  always  say  with  truth 
that  she  had  to  go  with  him- 


78  SIX  OF  ONE  ST 


CHAPTER 

T~^\ID  space  permit,  I  should  like  to  trace  pretty 
•**^  fully  the  experiences  of  the  year  which 
Horace  and  Rachel  thus  spent  in  New  York  City. 
They  were  many  and  significant ;  for  even  so 
short  a  period  as  a  year,  during  which  we  live 
broad,  is  evidently  equal  to  a  long  one  during 
which  we  live  narrow,  even  on  the  principles  of 
board  measure.  Mr.  Tennyson  has  said  very 
much  the  same  thing,  in  his  terse  maxim  of  com- 
parative chronology  about  "  fifty  years  of  Europe  " 
and  "  a  cycle  of  Cathay."  The  thing  is  impossi- 
ble, however ;  it  would  fill  a  book.  The  winter 
passed,  and  the  spring  came,  with  its  abominably 
filthy  streets,  and  the  uprising  again  of  all  the  evil 
smells  that  defile  our  greatest  city.  Dirtier  fifty 
years  of  New  York  than  a  cycle  of  Cologne,  I 
really  believe.  But  the  little  band  of  pilgrims  at 
Mrs.  Worboise's  boarding-house  lived  through  it, 
although  their  landlady's  delicately  clean  house- 
keeping probably  made  the  streets  worse  to  them 
than  to  anybody  else.  The  months  passed  on ;  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.     79 

mud  and  smells  of  spring  were  succeeded  by  the 
dust  and  smells  of  summer.  But  the  discomforts  of 
the  close  and  uncleanly  city  were  often  relieved  by 
the  little  excursions  that  Horace  or  Jim,  —  now 
promoted,  by  the  way,  to  an  editorial  post  in  the 
office  of  "The  Great  Democracy,"  —  used  to  or- 
ganize at  least  once  a  week;  sometimes  to  Fort 
Lee  and  the  wooded  summits  of  the  Palisades ; 
sometimes  to  the  heights  of  Staten  Island  above 
the  Narrows,  where  the  dismantled  old  circular 
sandstone  tower  of  Fort  Richmond  stands  in  a 
comatose  state  among  the  trees,  or  looking  va- 
cantly down  upon  the  enormous  modern  water- 
battery  below.  Sometimes  they  went  over  to 
Greenwood ;  or  rambled  along  the  beach  in  the 
vicinity  of  Fort  Hamilton,  —  though  the  beauties 
of  the  seashore  thereabouts,  and  on  Staten  Island 
as  well,  are  too  often  profaned  and  ruined  by  the 
sad  remains  of  some  defunct  horse  or  dog,  greatly 
destructive  of  all  romance.  And  the  Central 
Park  was  always  open;  a  blessed  parenthesis  of 
sweet  air  and  wholesome  nature  let  in  among  the 
brick  and  stone,  wholesome  and  refreshing  as  a 
cool  sleep  between  hot,  weary  days ;  Rachel  and 
Mrs.  Erling  particularly  used  to  pass  many  a  de- 
lightful half-day  there ;  sometimes  near  the  Mall 
and  the  Lake  and  the  shrubbery  above  it,  some- 
times in  the  less  frequented  and  quieter  regions  at 
the  northern  part  of  the  Park. 


80  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

The  four  quarters  of  the  completed  year  went 
by;  the  cool  nights  of  the  last  part  of  August 
foretold  the  coming  of  cool  days  in  September,  and 
in  due  time  the  cool  days  came.  It  was  on  one 
of  these  days  that  Horace,  coming  down  to  break- 
fast as  usual,  discerned  upon  the  pleasant  face  of 
the  landlady,  obvious  and  unusually  disfiguring 
traces  of  weeping.*  By  this  time  Horace  had  estab- 
lished himself  very'  strongly  in  the  affections  of 
Mrs.  Worboise,  who  indeed  had  come  to  lean 
upon  him  very  much  as  a  widow  does  upon  her 
grown-up  son.  She  was  fond  of  Jim  Fellows,  too, 
for  the  endless  vagaries  and  quips  of  that  rather 
fantastic  person  had  a  curious  fascination  for  her. 
But  she  was  rather  afraid  of  him,  or  at  least  she 
never  felt  quite  sure  about  him ;  while  the  more 
delicate  tact  and  more  respectful  kindness  of 
Horace  had  drawn  her  very  near  to  him.  It  was 
therefore  neither  impertinent  nor  inquisitive  for 
him  to  beckon  her  away  from  the  breakfast-table 
a  moment,  before  he  departed  to  his  business,  and 
when  she  had  accompanied  him  into  the  parlor,  to 
ask  her  plainly  what  was  the  matter. 

The  poor  little  lady  sat  down  on  the  sofa,  and 
spoke.  Horace  was  affected  by  her  grief,  for,  as 
he  said  himself,  he  could  scarcely  help  crying,  tall, 
strong  fellow  as  he  was,  when  he  saw  the  tears  of 
another ;  and  yet  he  could  not  help  a  sense  of  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     81 

ludicrous  as  Mrs.  Worboise  told  her  little  story, 
her  large  soft  eyes  looking  straight  into  his,  and 
the  tears  coming  out  one  after  another  close  to 
her  little  pink  nose,  and  pursuing  each  other  down 
her  soft  cheeks  until  they  fell  into  her  lap,  while 
so  easily  and  fluently  did  she  cry,  that  not  a  single 
sob  interfered  with  her  speech.. 

"  O  Horace  !  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do.  I 
can't  get  any  money  from  Mr.  De  Forest ;  and  he 
owes  me  all  by  himself  enough  to  pay  almost  a 
quarter's  rent.  And  the  landlord  says  he  won't 
wait  any  longer ;  and  if  I  don't  pay  up  in  full  by 
the  first  of  October,  and  a  month  in  advance  be- 
sides, he  must  have  all  my  furniture  as  security, 
and  I  must  leave  the  house  on  the  first  of  Novem- 
ber too.  I  suppose  he  ought  to  have  his  money ; 
but  it 's  very  hard !  I  don't  think  he  ought  to 
take  away  every  thing  I  have  in  the  world !  " 

Now,  Horace  was  what  you  may  call  a  natural 
husband.  That  is,  he  had  plenty  of  sense  and 
energy,  abundance  of  sympathy,  and  the  proper 
tact  of  a  man ;  which  is,  in  cases  like  this,  rather 
to  support  with  fit  encouragement  than  to  add 
grief  to  grief. 

"  It 's  a  great  shame,  Mrs.  Worboise.     But  now, 

don't  you  feel  bad  until  to-morrow,  at  any  rate. 

I  have  something  in  my  mind  that  will  very  likely 

help  you.     So  cheer  up,  and  keep  up  your  courage. 

4*  v 


82  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

We  '11  see  you  safe  through,  Providence  permit- 
ting." 

A  little  of  this  sort  of  general  encouragement 
went  a  great  way  with  such  a  facile  and  happy 
disposition.  It  was  only  a  few  moments  before 
Mrs.  Worboise  felt  a  great  deal  better. 

"  There,"  she  said,  drying  her  eyes,  "  I  'in  only 
a  baby,  after  all.  It 's  very  good  of  you,  dear,  to 
comfort  me  up:  I  won't  feel  bad  any  more,  at 
least  until  you  tell  me  I  may.  So  now  run  away 
to  your  work." 

Horace  had  an  idea,  it  is  true ;  one  that  he  had 
considered  a  good  many  times  ;  but  if  he  had  told 
Mrs.  Worboise  what  it  was,  it  would  not  have 
cheered  her  much,  I  fear.  It  does  not  sound  like 
any  thing  very  wonderful,  —  it  was  to  see  whether 
Jim  Fellows  couldn't  be  of  some  use. 

But  this  was  by  no  means  so  small  a  resource  as 
you  may  think.  A  Hew  York  newspaper  reporter, 
if  he  is  smart  and  efficient,  and  what  they  call  a 
rising  man,  and  particularly  if  he  is  gifted  with 
a  small  quantity  of  wickedness  for  extreme  cases, 
can  do  a  good  deal.  Horace  and  Jim  walked  down 
the  street  together,  as  they  often  did,  and  Horace 
opened  the  subject  to  him. 

"Why,  my  son,"  responded  Jim;  "I've  been 
honing  up  the  sword  of  justice  for  that  old  pig's 
throat  this  two  months.  Honor  bright,  is  it,  if  I 
tell  you  ?  " 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     83 

"  Honor  bright,"  said  Horace. 

"  Well,  then ;  you  know  he  owes  the  dame  now, 
after  what  deuced  little  he  has  ever  paid,  pretty 
near  a  thousand  dollars.  I've  worried  about  it 
some  myself — you've  noticed  that  I  grew  thin 
and  didn't  eat  any  thing  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Horace  promptly. 

"  All  right "  (with  a  grin)  ;  "  well,  I  had  a 
notion  three  months  ago  that  the  old  villain  could 
pay  if  he  chose,  and  I  've  invested  a  little  money 
to  find  out ;  and  I  've  found  out.  I  've  had  him 
shadowed  from  time  to  time  ever  since,  but  I  've 
not  got  quite  all  the  facts  I  want  yet.  Am  to  see 
my  man  this  very  day  ;  will  have  the  whole  for 
you  by  tea-time.  Meanwhile  keep  dark  !  " 

"I  will.  But,  Jim,  do  you  know  what  is  it 
that  the  old  fellow  is  inventing  ?  " 

"  No.     Not  my  line." 

"  Well,  I  do.  He  's  been  ordering  a  little  job  of 
iron  work  at  our  place,  and  he  ordered  some  more 
of  a  fellow  that  I  happen  to  know  ;  and  I  've  seen 
through  that  part  of  hi»  tricks,  anyhow.  It 's  a* 
perpetual  motion ! " 

Jim,  though  no  mechanic,  had  enough  of  general 
information  and  general  incredulity  together  to  let 
him  laugh  as  easily  as  Horace  himself  at  this  idea. 

"  Why,"  resumed  Jim,  "  I  thought  all  those 
notions  were  dead." 


84  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  By  no  means ;  men  are  at  work  at  such  ma- 
chines all  the  time.  I  knew  one  myself,  down 
in  North  Greyford.  But  I  wonder  Judge  De 
Forest  should  be  such  a  fool.  He  's  a  swindler, 
I  don't  doubt ;  but  I  don't  see  how  he  can  swindle 
anybody  very  deeply  with  such  a  bold  imposition 
as  this." 

"  But  I  do,  though  !  "  said  Jim.  "  Why,  Horace, 
don't  you  see  ?  No,  you  can't ;  you  don't  know  the 
man  he  's  swindling.  Well,  it  '11  be  safe  enough 
now,  so  I  '11  tell  you  a  little  more,  and  you  can  put 
that  and  that  together.  I  didn't  know  exactly  what 
his  machine  was,  but  I  knew  he  was  getting  up  a 
machine.  And  he  has  been  receiving  money  to 
pay  for  it,  —  and  a  good  deal  too,  —  a  good  deal 
more  than  is  necessary,  by  the  same  token,  and 
that's  just  where  the  blessed  old  scamp  means 
to  salt  down  a  little  peculium  for  himself." 

"  Well,  but  how  can  you  work  him  so  as  to  do 
Mrs.  Worboise  any  good?  " 

"  Oh !  you  just  leave  your  grandfather  all  alone 
for  that.  I  've  got  my  little  plans  pretty  near  a 
focus  now.  I  expected  to  touch  him  off  soon ; 
but  as  you  say  you  promised  to  comfort  the  dame 
by  this  evening,  I  guess  we  can  get  the  scenery 
ready  in  season.  Well,  here  we  are.  Hi-i-i-i !  " 
and  he  uttered  an  awful  yell,  just  as  they  reached 
the  corner  of  Broadway,  at  which  two  young  ladies 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     85 

just  before  them  jumped  and  squealed  in  a  very 
delightful  manner,  and  the  omnibus  driver,  who 
was  the  person  intended,  turned  round  at  once, 
though  he  was  half  a  block  away. 

"  See  there !  "  said  Jim ;  "  so  much  for  a  pig's 
whisper:  shot  'em  flying,  right  and  left.  Well  — 
au  reservoir  !  "  And  he  darted  off,  leaving  Horace 
to  go  about  his  business. 

At  the  boarding-house  the  hours  went  on  but 
heavily ;  for  the  cheerfulness  which  Horace  had 
inspired  did  not  very  long  avail  Mrs.  W.orboise 
against  the  steady,  incessant  weight  of  her  money 
troubles.  In  the  afternoon  she  coaxed  Rachel  to 
come  and  sit  with  her  in  her  room.  Rachel,  as 
relative,  friend,  and  helper,  had  grown  to  be  even 
closer  to  the  lonesome  and  loving-hearted  little 
widow  than  Horace  ;  closer,  that  is,  in  those  ex- 
changes of  emotional  expression  and  sentiment 
which,  for  want  of  husbands,  husbandless  women 
must  be  fain  to  transact  with  each  other,  since 
they  are  disclosures  that  will  have  secrecy,  and  if 
conjugal  honor  cannot  be  their  shield,  the  honor  of 
the  sex  must  serve. 

I  need  not  reproduce  the  details  of  their  dis- 
course ;  the  same  inexorable  fate,  the  abhorred 
fury  with  the  shears,  the  Atropos  of  the  printing- 
press,  cuts  short  the  thread  of  a  story  as  remorse- 
lessly as  her  infamous  old  namesake  the  threads  of 


86  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

lives ;  and  I  am  compressed  by  mere  violence  into  a 
summary  of  results.  For  the  first  time,  Mrs.  Wor- 
boise  confessed  plainly  the  hopeless  state  of  her 
business  affairs.  So  confidential  had  their  relations 
been,  that  this  may  seem  surprising;  yet  there 
must  always  be  some  last  thing  to  confess,  and 
with  Mrs.  Worboise  this  was  it. 

She  admitted  explicitly  that  she  was  absolutely 
incompetent  to  the  horrid  responsibilities  of  her 
post ;  but  what  was  worse,  she  saw  no  prospect  of 
any  thing  except  losing  all  her  furniture,  —  it 
represented  a  total  of  abouk  two  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars,  less,  of  course,  an  important  de- 
duction for  wear  and  tear,  —  and  of  being  turned 
out  of  the  only  home  she  had,  without  a  cent  or  a 
shelter. 

It  was  a  sufficiently  melancholy  picture,  indeed  ; 
and  as  usual,  Mrs.  Worboise  cried  as  she  drew  it. 
There  was  pretty  sure  to  be  water  in  all  her  land- 
scapes. Rachel  proceeded  to  pretty  nearly  repeat 
Horace's  morning  course  of  tonics.  She  ventured, 
indeed,  a  step  farther  than  he  had  done ;  for  she 
took  the  liberty  of  reproving  her  aunt,  in  a  small 
feminine  way,  for  not  finding  more  comfort  under 
her  difficulties  in  her  religion, * —  a  sort  of  thing  in 
reproofs  very  commonly  to  be  observed  in  those 
youthful  good  folks  who  have  not  yet  suffered  any 
of  the  chronic  and  wearing  afflictions  which  draw 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.     87 

most  heavily  upon  the  religious  constitution.  After 
they  have  thus  suffered,  however,  they  find  out 
what  a  labor  it  is  to  be  happy  by  any  means  what- 
ever, in  circumstances  which  constitute  unhappi- 
ness.  But  Mrs.  Worboise  had  no  disposition  to 
answer  in  this  sense.  She  was  very  meek,  and  con- 
fessed (with  tears)  that  it  was  wrong ;  but  that  it 
was  one  of  those  times  when  every  thing  in  the 
world  seemed  to  be  against  her. 

However,  after  a  reasonable  allowance  of  such 
healthful  moral  exercises,  the  two  women  grew  a 
little  more  cheerful  together,  and  then  they  fell  to 
comparing  of  personal  experiences ;  for  nothing  is 
so  certain  to  bring  out  confidences,  as  confiding 
something.  Here  there  came  to  the  light  mighty 
secrets,  whereof,  however,  we  shall  refer  to  only 
two. 

Mrs.  Worboise  hinted  that  she  had  expected 
Rachel  would  be  at  once  Mark  Hinsdale's  wife 
and  her  father's  housekeeper ;  in  reply  to  which 
Rachel,  in  a  quiet,  serious  way,  intimated  that 
perhaps  it  might  have  been  so,  but  that  Mark  had 
greatly  distressed  her,  and,  she  thought,  done  wrong, 
in  pressing  her  as  earnestly  as  he  did  to  marry  him 
while  her  grief  was  so  fresh  at  her  mother's  death  ; 
and  that  in  consequence  the  currents  of  their  feel- 
ings about  each  other  had  quite  changed.  Then 
Mrs.  Worboise  intimated  further  that  perhaps 


88  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Horace,  &c.  To  which  the  demure  Rachel  only 
said,  —  hardly  blushing,  and  with  proper  and  ac- 
curate caution  in  utterance,  —  that  he  hadn't  asked 
her,  —  a  very  safe  answer.  Then  Mrs.  Worboise 
replied  that  he  meant  to,  —  she  knew  it,  she  said, 
—  putting  a  thought  too  much  emphasis  on  her 
verb  ;  upon  which  Miss  Rachel  dexterously  turned 
the  conversation,  and  talked  away  famously  about 
Uncle  Worboise. 

But  whether  or  not  they  did  each  other  any  other 
good,  at  any  rate  they  got  rid  of  nearly  all  the  after- 
noon ;  insomuch  that  before  they  knew  it,  it  was 
time  to  get  ready  for  tea. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     89 


CHAPTER  IX. 

**  I^EA  came,  and  the  boarders  came  to  tea.  Noth- 
ing  has  been  said  in  this  history,  as  nothing 
was  needed,  —  and  there  was  no  room  if  any  thing 
had  been,  —  about  the  rank  and  file  of  this  noble 
army.  Suffice  it  to  observe,  that  they  filled  a  pretty 
long  table  in  the  large  basement  dining-room,  which 
had  been  carried  through  into  the  original  kitchen 
of  the  house  ;  that  having,  in  its  turn,  been  driven 
out  into  an  addition  built  upon  part  of  the  back 
yard.  Judge  De  Forest  was  present  with  his  frill 
and  his  dignity ;  Miss  Doddle  and  Mrs.  Fogey  were 
there  with  their  serious  and  improving  observations, 
—  what  a  pity  that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  trans- 
fer a  seasoning  at  least  of  their  discourse  into  these 
comparatively  frivolous  pages !  —  Rachel  was  there, 
and  Horace,  and  Mrs.  Erling,  and  Jim  Fellows,  the 
scandalizing  tease,  who  used  to  vex  the  righteous 
souls  of  those  two  saintly  women,  to  startle  Mrs. 
Worboise,  and  to  amuse  Rachel  and  Horace  and 
himself,  with  deftly  chosen  observations,  which 
seemed  awfully  irreverent  at  first ;  but  which  he 


90  SIX  OF  ONE  ST 

always  defended  in  such  a  manner  as  to  confound, 
if  not  convince,  his  opponents,  who  at  last  came  to 
treat  him  mostly  with  that  peculiar  sort  of  tender 
consideration  which  a  puppy  learns  to  display  in 
nosing  a  chestnut-burr.  Jim,  by  the  way,  accord- 
ing to  the  etiquette  in  such  cases,  briefly  introduced 
this  evening  to  Mrs.  Worboise  a  quiet  and  respecta- 
ble-looking man,  whom  he  named  as  Mr.  Crafts  ;  a 
professional  acquaintance,  he  observed,  whom  he 
had  taken  the  liberty  of  inviting  to  sup  with  him. 
Mrs.  Worboise  accordingly  received  Mr.  Crafts, 
and  seated  him  next  Jim,  with  her  wonted  kindly 
courtesy;  though  Horace  and  Rachel,  if  not  the 
others,  saw  that  she  was  still  distraught  with  her 
troubles,  no  matter  how  bravely  she  strove  to 
thrust  them  down  out  of  the  way  of  her  official 
duties.  And  the  viands  of  the  meal  were  served, 
and  there  were  chat  and  pleasantry  and  laughter  as 
usual. 

"  Thank  you  for  the  toasted  codfish,"  observed 
Master  Jim  to  his  vis-d-vis,  Mrs.  Pogey.  "  Dread- 
ful thing,  if  they  only  knew  it,  to  be  grilled  so 
after  they  're  dead,  —  hay  ?  " 

Mrs.  Pogey  groaned  and  shook  her  head,  and 
answered,  — 

"  Mr.  Fellows,  if  we  sin  against  great  light  we 
shall  no  doubt  find  a  dreadful  fate  awaiting  us 
after  death." 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     91 

"  Light  ?  "  replied  Jim,  as  cheerfully  as  if  the 
good  lady  had  made  the  most  humorous  suggestion 
in  the  world  —  "  light  ?  Codfish  ain't  much  on 
optics.  Hefty  in  acoustics,  though,  —  all  tongues 
and  sounds  inside.  Ever  listen  to  one  of  those 
sounds  ?  Gung'l,  the  fiddler,  was  a  Newfound- 
lander ;  did  you  know  that,  Mrs.  Worboise  ?  So 
fond  of -sounds  that  he  always  kept  a  keg  of  ;em 
by  him  to  smell  at  for  inspiration  in  composing. 
Named  his  very  best  set  of  waltzes  after  it  — 
'  Sounds  from  home,'  you  know." 

Then  he  looked  across  to  the  Judge,  who  was 
solemnly  imbibing  his  Oolong,  and  continued, 
"  By  the  way,  Judge,  how  comes  on  the  perp  ?  " 

Judge  De  Forest  started,  set  down  his  cup,  and 
looked  across  with  a  most  severe  and  deeply  of- 
fended air. 

"-Etual,"  insisted  Jim,  with  a  wink.  "  Oh,  we 
know  a  thing  or  two,  Judge  !  No  hyphens  be- 
tween friends,  Judge.  But  that  wasn't  what  I 
was  going  to  say.  Any  sounds  from  your  home 
recently,  Judge  ?  " 

The  old  fellow's  face  grew  quite  purple  with 
heavy  wrath  and  dignity. 

"  Mr.  Fellows,"  he  remarked,  in  his  most  judi- 
cial manner,  "  I  fail  to  apprehend  either  the  sig- 
nificance or  the  propriety  of  your  observations,  sir. 
They  are  unseasonable,  sir.  I  fear  that  you  have 


92  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

been  somewhat  thoughtless  in  your  use  of  stimulat- 
ing liquors,  sir.  You  are  certainly  violating  the 
proprieties,  sir ! " 

Jim  opened  his  mouth  to  reply,  when  a  sharp, 
high,  female  voice  broke  in,  — 

"  Jedge,  indeed !  Not  haaf  so  much  as  you  're 
a  violatin'  on  'em  this  minnit,  Ephraim  Huggins !  " 

"  Oh ! "  cried  Mrs.  Worboise,  "  I  forgot  to  in- 
troduce Mrs.  Huggins ! " 

Then  she  stopped  short ;  in  fact,  it  was  a  super- 
fluous introduction.  The  silence  that  followed 
was,  for  a  moment,  perfect.  Then  a  single  sniz- 
zling  giggle  would  squeeze  out  through  Jim  Fel- 
lows's  teeth,  though  he  held  in  as  hard  as  he  could. 
Horace,  seeming  to  understand,  managed  to  laugh 
silently ;  and  the  stranger,  Mr.  Crafts,  too,  smiled  ; 
a  kind  of  grim  smile,  that  intimated  amusement 
rather  than  surprise.  But  the  blank,  ineffable 
astoundment  of  all  the  rest  can  hardly  be  dreamed. 
As  for  the  Judge,  nothing  can  do  justice  to  his 
bearing  except,  perhaps,  a  horrid  picture  that  I 
once  saw  of  a  monstrous  old  bison  being  worried 
to  death  by  a  gang  of  prairie  wolves ;  blinded, 
bleeding  at  a  hundred  wounds,  helpless  to  reach  or 
to  escape  his  agile  assailants,  resisting,  indeed,  only 
in  the  vast  mass  of  his  slow  enduring  vitality.  So 
the  heavy  old  judge,  thus  beset,  still  maintained 
his  pompous  manner ;  though  a  very  close  observer 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     93 

might  have  noticed  even  a  kind  of  tremor  during 
the  impromptu  observations  of  the  high-voiced 
lady ;  and  there  assuredly  was  a  shade  of  uncer- 
tainty in  his  tones  when  he  responded,  and  he 
would  not  look  towards  the  lady  aforesaid,  who 
had  jumped  up  when  she  began  her  apostrophe, 
and  remained  standing.  All  the  rest  could  thus 
perceive  that  she  was  oldish,  thin,  and  indeed 
skinny ;  pale  and  worried-looking,  with  thin  lips, 
a  cross  expression,  a  peaked,  red-tipped  nose, 
scanty  hair,  and  a  shabby  old  dress.  Perhaps  if 
they  had  known  her  as  well  as  the  Judge,  they 
would  not  have  looked  at  her  any  more  than  he 
did.  She  certainly  was  not  pretty  to  see,  as  she 
stood  there  quivering  with  nervous  excitement, 
and  her  little,  pale,  watery  eyes  looking  venom- 
ously at  the  august  object  of  her  ire.  The  Judge 
arose,  and  it  was  to  Mrs.  Worboise  that  he  spoke  :  — 

"  Madam,  I  have  been  grossly  insulted  at  your 
table.  I  shall  withdraw,  madam.  I  am  by  no 
means  accustomed  to  such  treatment,  and  shall  not 
put  up  with  it,  madam !  " 

And,  pushing  back  his  chair,  he  left  the  room 
without  attending  to  the  embarrassed  apology 
which  Mrs.  Worboise  began  to  offer.  Even  before 
the  door  closed  behind  the  burly  frame  of  the 
Judge,  however,  Mr.  Crafts  arose  with  much  nim- 
bleness,  and,  without  a  word  of  apology  or  explana- 


94  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

tion,  darted  out  after  him.  Jim  and  Horace 
followed,  rather  more  deliberately.  Mrs.  Hug- 
gins  sat  down.  All  the  rest  of  the  boarders  looked 
at  each  other  in  a  stunned  sort  of  way,  and 
exchanged  expressions  of  wonder  in  low  tones. 

In  a  moment  Jim  looked  in,  and  asked  Mrs. 
Worboise  to  be  good  enough  to  step  into  the  par- 
lor a  moment.  She  did  so,  and  found  the  unhappy 
Judge  again  at  bay. 

"  O  Mr.  Fellows !  pray  tell  me  what  does  it  all 
mean  ?  "  she  cried  out,  in  a  terrible  state  of  nut- 
ter. 

"  Just  what  I  asked  you  in  here  for,"  observed 
he.  "  But  take  a  seat.  We  '11  finish  our  negotia- 
tions in  a  moment.  What  is  the  whole  amount 
due  you  from  Huggins  ?  " 

"You  mean  Judge  De  Forest?"  asked  Mrs. 
Worboise  timidly. 

"  No  more  a  judge  than  yourself,  madam," 
broke  in  Crafts  sententiously.  "  Ephraim  Hug- 
gins  of  Saint  Louis,  State  of  Mizzoorah,  spekila- 
ter." 

With  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  the  good  lady,  at 
Jim's  reiterated  demand,  and  with  wide,  scared 
eyes,  managed  to  get  enough  of  her  wits  together 
to  fix  on  the  correct  sum  total,  —  a  little  short  of 
nine  hundred  dollars.  Fellows  summarily  said, 
"We'll  call  it  the  round  sum;  little  enough  for 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     95 

interest ; "  and  he  scribbled  a  receipt  in  full,  and 
laid  it  before  Mrs.  Worboise,  saying,  — 

"  Sign  that,  please." 

"But"  —  she  began,  naturally  enough  — 

"  All  right,  marm,"  said  Crafts. 

"Yes,"  assented  Horace,  "it's  right;  do,  Mrs. 
Worboise."  And  she  signed,  like  one  in  a  dream. 

"  There,"  said  Jim :  "  check  for  that  amount, 
Huggins,  if  you  please." 

"  Suppose  I  won't,  what  then  ?  "  said  Huggins 
surlily. 

"  Take  him,  Crafts."  said  Jim  ;  "  we  won't  have 
a  particle  of  nonsense." 

Crafts  now  showed  and  read  an  order  of  arrest 
on  a  charge  of  swindling,  and  sued  out  in  behalf 
of  one  Marcus  Wendall. 

Huggins,  at  hearing  this  name,  muttered  a  pretty 
large  oath,  and  without  a  word  took  out  a  big  fat 
pocket-book,  drew  from  it  a  blank  check,  filled 
and  signed  it,  and  pushed  it  over  the  table. 

"  No  go,"  said  Jim,  who  read  it  carefully. 
"  T'other  bank,  Huggins  !  " 

Evidently  with  the  very  bitterest  reluctance, 
the  detected  swindler  substituted  another  check. 

"  There,  Mrs.  Worboise,"  said  Jim,  "  there 's 
your  money.  But  do  you  be  sure  and  cash  the 
check  the  moment  the  bank 's  •  open  to-morrow. 
If  Crafts  had  let  the  old  villain  get  out  of  the  front 


96  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

door  he  was  pointing  for  when  he  left  the  table, 
you  wouldn't  have  got  it.  I  reckon  we  've  got  to 
keep  him  here  all  night  as  'tis,  and  Crafts  along 
with  him,  to  make  it  a  sure  thing  —  that  is,  unless 
he  wants  to  sleep  in  the  station-house,  and  also, 
unless  Mrs.  Worboise  orders  him  into  the  street." 

"  Oh,  no  !  "  she  cried  out.  "  Oh,  not  in  the 
least!" 

"  Or,"  suggested  Crafts,  in  his  grimmest  manner, 
"  unless  the  old  gentleman  'd  like  the  society  of 
his  lawful  wife." 

Even  Huggins  appeared  to  see  that  this  was  not 
a  serious  suggestion.  It  was  therefore  agreed  that 
Mr.  Crafts  should  be  intrusted  with  the  pleasing 
task  of  watching  over  the  slumbers  of  Mr.  Hug- 
gins,  in  place  of  that  fairer  companion  whom  he 
seemed  to  scorn. 

"Well,"  said  Huggins,  "if  you're  through  with 
me,  I  am  with  you ;  I  '11  go  upstairs." 

"  Wait  a  moment,"  said  Horace,  —  "  Here,  Jim." 
They  conferred  a  moment  in  a  corner.  "  Good ! 
^first-rate!"  exclaimed  Jim.  "Call 'em  in." 

Horace  stepped  out,  and  brought  in  Rachel  and 
Mrs.  Huggins.  Rachel  sat  down  close  to  Mrs. 
Worboise,  and  Mrs.  Huggins  opposite  her  lord. 

"Mrs.  H.,"  said  Jim,  "we've  been  thinking 
that  perhaps  it  would  do  nicely  all  round'  if  our 
friend  there  should  just  hand  you  half  his  cash 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE   OTHER.  97 

balance  now  in  bank,  and  then  you  leave  him  alone 
again!  That'll  give  you  —  let's  see" — he  took 
out  a  memorandum  —  "  about  thirteen  hundred 
dollars." 

Mrs.  Huggins  considered  a  moment,  and  con- 
sented. 

"  That  is,"  suggested  the  practical  Crafts,  "  un- 
til you  find  out  that  he 's  got  another  amount  to 
levy  on." 

Wincing,  if  any  thing,  more  than  before,  the 
victim  drew  another  check,  and  was  then  allowed 
to  depart  under  the  charge  of  the  vigilant  Crafts 
to  his  own  room.  Jim  renewed  to  Mrs.  Huggins, 
who  was  also  going  upstairs,  the  caution  he  had 
given  to  Mrs.  Worboise  about  the  check ;  and  then 
Mrs.  Worboise  insisted  that  Jim  Fellows  should 
tell  her  what  she  had  been  about,  and  what  he  had 
been  about :  "  For,  mercy  me  !  "  exclaimed  the 
puzzled  landlady,  "  1  feel  as  if  I  had  been  whirled 
round  in  a  coffee-roaster !  " 

Jim  explained.  He  told  the  landlady  how  he 
had  been  watching  Huggins  for  a  long  time  ;  how 
he  had  only  this  very  day  found  out  about  two 
bank-accounts,  the  sham  and  the  true ;  how  the 
vengeful  Mrs.  Huggins  had  a  few  days  ago  come 
to  New  York  in  search  of  her  recreant  lord,  and 
going  to  the  detective  head-quarters,  had  fallen  in 
with  Crafts,  who  had  forthwith  notified  Jim,  and 


98  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

thereupon  the  tea-table  tableau  had  been  blocked 
out. 

"  But  what  made  him  do  as  you  told  him  to  ?  " 
asked  Rachel. 

"  Why,  bless  you,  didn't  you  see  the  oi££  of 
arrest?"  asked  Jim. 

"  But  what  has  he  done  to  Wendall  ?  " 

"Got  a  lot  of  his  money.  But  the  real  thing 
that  frightened  him  was,  that  I  let  him  know  I 
would  expose  him  in  the  papers  in  full,  in  my  most 
picturesque  style,  if  he  didn't  pay  up.  That  would 
have  broken  up  his  whole  arrangement  with  Wen- 
dall." 

"Why,"  said  Horace,  "broke  it  up?  WendaU 
has  sued  out  this  order  of  arrest  now." 

"  No,  he  hasn't,"  said  Jim  coolly.  "  When  the 
ladies  have  got  their  money,  I  shall  notify  Huggins 
that  the  warrant  is  all  a  hum,  and  that  he  can 
proceed  against  me  for  false  imprisonment  or  con- 
spiracy or  forgery  or  high  treason,  if  he  wants. 
He'll  be  as  still  as  a  mouse,  though,  no  fear  of 
that." 

"  Why,"  said  Horaoe  again,  his  eyes  wide  open, 
"  it 's  a  forgery !  " 

"  No ;  the  statute  defines  that,"  calmly  explained 
Master  Jim.  "I  asked  a  lawyer.  It's  a  misde- 
meanor ;  but  we  '11  burn  the  corpus  delicti  in  good 
season ;  and  the  recording  angel  will  blot  out  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     99 

entry  with  a  tear,  as  he  did  Uncle  Toby's  oath 
because  I  'm  a  good  little  boy,  after  all." 

It  was  a  fact ;  the  reckless  fellow  had  certainly 
perpetrated  a  legal  offence,  and  a  pretty  serious 
one ;  yet  it  was  so  extremely  fine  a  specimen  of 
poetical  justice,  that  one  can  hardly  help  being 
glad  afterwards,  though  none  of  us  could  really 
have  recommended  it  in  advance. 

Mrs.  Worboise  intended  to  transfer  the  whole  of 
her  money  to  the  landlord.  But  Jim  and  Horace, 
acting  a  good  deal  like  joint  conservators  for  her 
benefit,  forbade  this,  saying  that  half  of  it  was 
quite  enough. 

"  Fact  is,"  said  Jim,  "  I  know  you  can't  go  on 
here,  dame,  just  as  well  as  you  do,  and  a  sight 
better  too.  You  ought  to  put  the  money  in  your 
pocket  and  leave." 

Here  a  servant  brought  in  a  letter  for  Rachel, 
saying  that  it  had  fallen  down  behind  the  table  on 
which  the  carrier's  letters  were  laid  at  the  after- 
noon delivery,  and  that  she  had  just  found  it  on 
the  floor.  Rachel  read  it,  and  handed  it  to  Mrs. 
Worboise.  It  was  from  Squire  Holley,  and  was 
an  urgent  request  to  his  half-sister  to  close  up  her 
New  York  business  and  come  and  keep  house  for 
him. 

"  He  's  just  as  good  as  he  can  be,"  said  the  land- 
lady tearfully.  "  I  don't  know  what  to  say." 


100  SIX  'OF  ONE  BY 

"  I  do,"  said  Horace.  "  I  '11  bet  that  sly  thing 
told  her  father  to  do  that ! " 

Rachel  blushed.  "Well,"  said  she,  "if  I  did, 
it  was  in  good  season,  wasn't  it  ?  Mayn't  I  help 
Aunt  Delia  as  well  as  you  ?  " 

"  Surely,"  said  Horace ;  "  and  very  good  of  you 
to  do  it.  And  Mrs.  Worboise  must  go  too.  Now, 
Mrs.  Worboise,  cash  your  check  in  the  morning. 
Jim  and  I  will  go  and  see  Mr.  Warren  this  very 
mimrte." 

Warren  was  the  landlord.  The  young  men 
went  instantly.  He  was  a  sufficiently  well-dis- 
posed old  fellow,  but  would  not  give  them  much 
of  an  answer  that  night,  saying  —  very  naturally 
•; — that  he  must  see  his  tenant. 

However,  within  a  few  days  an  arrangement  was 
made  by  which  Mrs.  Worboise's  lease  was  surren- 
dered ;  her  furniture  and  carpets,  which  under  her 
skilful  and  diligent  management  were  in  remarkably 
good  order,  were  appraised ;  the  landlord  knew  of  a 
lady,  he  said,  who  would,  he  thought,  take  charge 
of  the  whole  establishment  at  the  end  of  Septem- 
ber ;  and  not  only  was  Mrs.  Worboise  able  to  re- 
tain the  whole  of  her  money  from  Huggins,  but. 
there  was  a  little  surplus  due  her  from  the  furni- 
ture, over  and  above  the  arrears  of  rent  which  it 
paid  for. 

Notice  was  given  to  the  boarders  accordingly; 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.  '   101 

and  on  or  before  the  30th  September,  1871,  they 
either  searched  out  other  homes,  or  arranged  to 
remain  under  the  new  administration. 

As  for  Huggins,  he  departed  on  the  morning 
after  his  exposure,  with  his  frill  much  rumpled, 
his  feathers  generally  in  a  very  draggled  state, 
and  his  bank-account  horribly  dilapidated.  He 
talked  big  to  the  very  last,  assuring  Crafts  that 
he  should  hear  from  him. 


102  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER  X. 

r  I  ^HE  diligent  reader  has  already  learned  that 
Nettie  Sylva  and  Jeff  Fleming  found  their 
way  to  the  ancient  and  wealthy  city  of  Hartford. 
It  is  such  a  trifle  to  travel  nowadays,  that  I  need 
only  say  that  they  went  at  such  times  as  pleased 
them,  by  rail,  from  Greyford  to  New  Haven,  and 
thence  to  Hartford.  Nettie's  Aunt  Helen  lived  in 
a  little  cosey  tenement  of  her  own,  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  city ;  and  Nettie  went,  of  course,  to  her 
home.  As  for  Jeff  Fleming,  he  established  him- 
self at  first  in  a  hall  bedroom,  and  "  lived  in  his 
trunk ; "  but  being  at  once  independent  and  soci- 
able in  his  tastes,  he  quickly  devised  a  scheme 
which  was  on  many  accounts  much  more  agree- 
able ;  and  enlisting  two  or  three  decent  young  fel- 
lows, a  clerk  in  the  same  store  with  him,  and 
others,  acquaintances  of  the  same  clerk,  they  found 
some  empty  rooms  all  in  a  row  on  the  upper  floor 
of  a  great  building  all  full  of  offices,  in  the  heart 
of  the  city,  and,  buying  cheap  new  carpets  and 
sets  of  furniture,  they  fitted  up  a  very  nice  little 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    103 

colony  in  the  air, — three  little  bedrooms,  and  a 
fourth  room  for  a  parlor.  Here  they  lived  in  great 
mirth  and  harmony ;  for  though  no  two  of  them 
were  alike,  yet  that  only  made  the  quartet  more 
entertaining  to  its  members ;  and,  as  they  were  all 
manly  and  well-meaning  young  men,  they  were  in 
no  danger  of  jars  or  disagreements. 

It  is  a  pity  not  to  acquaint  you  with  the  fun  and 
jollity  those  four  had  in  "  the  dove-cot,"  as  they 
christened  it,  and  of  the  serious  communion  too  ; 
for  thorough  good  fellows  like  these  four  will  be 
sure  to  discuss  as  they  go  along  together  both  the 
funny  and  the  serious  sides  of  every  thing.  As  for 
Jeff,  he  was  a  sociable,  organizing,  and  suggestive 
person,  full  of  ideas,  and  greatly  inclined  to  set 
them  forth ;  in  danger  therefore,  if  in  any  danger 
iii  that  direction,  of  becoming  wordy  and  long- 
winded.  Jerry  Bigelow  was  full  of  puns  and  ver- 
bal jocularities  ;  and  he  therefore  tended  to  his  own 
proper  sort  of  tediousness.  Punsters,  however,  have 
to  be  quick-witted  ;  and  thus  they  well  know  that 
the  sole  condition  on  which  they  are  tolerated  is, 
that  they  endure  the  pick-pocket  similitude,  and 
all  manner  of  other  snubbing  and  reprobation 
usually,  of  course,  administered  by  persons  not 
bright  enough  to  do  what  they  affect  so  greatly 
to  despise  ;  so  that  the  pretty  uniform  course  of 
ingenious  discouragements  which  his  three  com- 


104  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

panions  provided  for  him  no  more  discouraged 
Master  Jerry  than  the  jeers  and  sarcasm  of  the 
heathen  would  a  pious  and  enthusiastic  mission- 
ary. Ralph  Van  Or  den  was  neither  a  joker  nor  a 
talker.  He  was  handsome,  dark-faced,  a  little  slow 
of  speech,  and  a  fine  singer  of  many  songs  and  bal- 
lads, which  he  accompanied,  by  ear,  on  the  guitar. 
Last  of  the  four  was  Abram  Wilks,  a  tall  flaxen- 
haired  fellow,  slender  even  to  lankness,  awkward 
and  queer  as  possible,  with  a  great  taste  for  collec- 
tions of  all  kinds,  —  shells,  coins,  old  books,  eggs, 
any  thing  that  could  be  classified  or  even  put  in  a 
row. 

Jeffs  circle  of  friends  began  to  enlarge  before  he 
had  been  many  weeks  in  Hartford.  In  a  town  like 
that,  crowded  with  an  immense  concentration  of 
business,  there  is  a  gathering  of  both  young  men 
and  old  almost  as  busy  and  wide-awake  as  in 
enormous  New  York.  At  the  same  time,  the  very 
fact  that  the  city  is  small  prevents  the  sense  of 
loneliness  that  springs  up  amid  the  New  York 
multitude,  and  preserves  a  portion  of  the  feeling  of 
guardianship  and  watchfulness  by  the  community 
over  the  individual.  This  is  a  wonderfully  valu- 
able guarantee  of  decency  and  uprightness  in  life. 
So  Jeff  flourished  and  made  progress  with  great 
speed ;  became  an  active  member  of  the  Sons  of 
Temperance,  and  of  a  debating  society  connected 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    105 

with  the  Young  Men's  Institute  ;  a  diligent  and 
inquisitive  scholar  in  a  Bible-class  at  the  Centre 
Church  Sunday-school,  sometimes  even  somewhat 
to  the  bewilderment  of  the  intelligent  but  rather 
conventional  gentleman  in  charge  ;  a  useful  mem- 
ber of  the  choir  —  for  Jeff  sung  a  very  fair  bari- 
tone, and  could  even  serve  as  a  tenor  in  case  of 
great  necessity,  with  a  little  strain  or  even  a  falsetto 
on  a  few  of  the  higher  notes,  and  constant  care  to 
sing  in  a  head  voice. 

As  for  Nettie  Sylva,  her  case  was  about  equally 
fortunate.  Her  aunt  was  much  older  than  Dr. 
Sylva  ;  and  having  always  had  an  especial  fond- 
ness for  Nettie,  the  relation  between  them  was 
more  like  the  loving  tenderness  of  affectionate 
grandparent  and  grandchild,  than  a  mere  ordinary 
collateral  kinship  in  the  second  degree.  Aunt 
Helen  was  quite  an  old  lady,  wearing  her  own  gray 
hair  under  a  neat  cap,  always  dressing  in  black  or 
gray,  precise  and  rigid  in- all  her  views,  feelings,  ' 
and  sentiments,  and  especially  high  and  unbending 
in  respect  of  goodness  of  family,  belonging  in  this 
as  well  as  in  some  other  respects  to  a  class  of  which 
but  few  specimens  are  nowadays  left,  like  lofty 
peaks  of  a  primitive  formation,  rising  through  the 
homogeneous  "  tertiary  drift  "  and  "  recent  allu- 
vium "  of  our  average  communities.  Her  husband, 
Deacon  Tarbox,  was  a  dry  and  quaint  old  gentle- 

5* 


106  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

man,  with  the  oddest  prim  air  about  him,  and  of  a 
precision,  conservatism,  orthodoxy,  and  careful  cor- 
rectness generally,  of  such  inexpressible  rigidity, 
that  in  comparison  with  him,  even  poor  strict 
Aunt  Helen  might  appear  quite  randy.  But  he 
had  a  good  deal  of  humor  of  a  high  and  dry  sort, 
which  he  dealt  out  sparingly,  and  with  something 
like  an  air  of  regret,  as  a  miser  dislikes  to  see  coin 
move  away  from  his  fingers,  irrespective  whether 
gain  or  loss  is  to  follow. 

Deacon  Tarbox  and  Aunt  Helen  always  had 
baked  beans  for  supper  Saturday  night,  and  the 
same  cold  for  dinner  on  Sunday,  the  latter  meal 
being  sometimes  re-enforced  by  a  dish  of  cold 
meat  and  invariably  by  pie  and  a  cup  of  tea. 
Jeff  had  called  to  see  Nettie  very  soon  after  they 
came  to  Hartford ;  and  the  young  man,  having  had 
the  tact  to  keep  pretty  much  all  of  his  ideas  to  him- 
self, and  to  assent  to  whatever  was  suggested  by  the 
seniors  in  the  way  of  doctrines,  whether  secular  or 
theological,  became  highly  acceptable  in  their  eyes. 
His  membership  of  the  Bible-class  and  of  the  choir 
—  as  it  happened  it  was  at  the  Centre  Church  that 
Mr.  Tarbox  was  deacon  —  confirmed  this  good  opin- 
ion, as  did  also  his  co-operation  in  the  temperance 
reform ;  and  thus  it  fell  out  that  not  only  was  Jeff 
installed  as  Nettie's  usual  escort  to  rehearsals  —  she 
sang  alto,  by  the  way,  and  a  good  alto  too,  — •  oil 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    107 

Saturday  evening^ ;  but  it  came  to  be  the  recog- 
nized order  of  events,  that  he  should  take  tea  at 
Deacon  Tarbox's  Saturday  evenings,  and  should 
also,  whenever  he  chose,  be  allowed  to  walk  home 
with  the  family  from  church,  and  partake  of  the 
modest  and  cool  but  substantial  regulation  dinner 
of  that  day.  It  need  not  be  said  that  at  these  sab- 
bath occasions  —  Deacon  Tarbox  always  said  "  the 
sabbath,"  and  never  "  Sunday  "  —  the  greatest  seri- 
ousness of  word  and  look  was  a  matter  of  course. 
But  Jeff  Fleming,  a  New  England  boy,  knew  this 
well  enough ;  no  danger  of  his  offending  in  this 
respect,  so  long  as  he  should  wish  to  preserve  the 
good  opinion  of  the  deacon,  or  to  be  even  tolerated 
within  his  gates.  It  is  possible  that  this  rigid  law 
was  slightly  relaxed  during  the  Saturday  evening 
after  sunset ;  but  the  difference,  if  there  was  any, 
was  but  a  shade.  It  was  the  old  school  of  observ- 
ances as  well  as  of  theology  to  which  Deacon  Tar- 
box  belonged,  and  had  belonged  from  his  youth  up, 
and  in  which  he  would  continue  to  his  death,  should 
that  be  a  thousand  years  hence. 

The  first  occasion,  however,  on  which  Jeff  was 
admitted  to  the  deacon's  hospitality,  was  a  week- 
day one,  only  a  few  days  after  his  arrival,  and 
before  he  was  quite  settled  in  his  new  home; 
being  a  dinner,  to  which  he  was  invited  by  Aunt 
Helen  so  very  pressingly  that  he  could  not  well 


108  BIX  OF  ONE  BY 

refuse.  He  must  stay,  really,  said  the  good  old 
lady;  she  did  not  see  Greyford  faces  every  day, 
and  his  mother  was  her  father's  second  cousin. 

In  the  matter  of  kinship,  the  Yankees  are  al- 
most as  tenacious  as  the  Scotch ;  and  those  of  the 
country  towns  especially.  It  belonged  to  the 
quiet  and  steadfast  character  of  Aunt  Helen  to 
preserve  this  sentiment,  even  after  her  many 
years'  residence  in  the  busy  city ;  and  Jeff  respond- 
ed to  it  with  the  vivacious  pleasure  of  a  youth 
who  finds  unexpected  friends.  However,  the  chief 
reason  for  recording  this  first  dinner  was  not  so 
much  its  being  a  demonstration  of  natural  affec- 
tion, as  the  fact  that  it  gives  an  opportunity  to 
chronicle  one  of  Deacon  Tarbox's  characteristic 
sayings.  If  the  occasion  had  been  Sunday,  or 
Saturday  evening  either,  he  would  have  bitten  his 
own  head  off  before  he  would  have  said  it ;  be- 
sides that  the  subject-matter  would  have  been 
absent.  They  had  a  roast  pig  for  dinner  -on  the 
day  in  question,  succulent  and  toothsome  enough 
to  have  inspired  the  famous  treatise  of  Charles 
Lamb  on  the  subject,  and  which  pleased  well  the 
healthy  young  appetites  of  Miss  Nettie  and  Mas- 
ter Jeff.  The  young  gentleman,  indeed,  expressed 
his  approbation  in  warm  terms,  and  asked  Aunt 
Helen  how  she  could  possibly  contrive  to  produce 
such  a  marvellous  triumph  of  the  culinary  art. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          1Q9 

Before  the  old  lady  could  say  whatever  she  meant 
to  say,  her  quaint  old  husband  answered  for  her, 
with  his  very  driest  manner,  in  his  most  pre- 
cise and  slow  'utterance,  with  an  extra  portion 
of  solemnity  about  his  prim,  thin  lips,  and  with 
a  funny,  formal  bow  across  the  table  to  his 
spouse :  — 

.  "  I  will  tell  you,  Mr.  Fleming.  She  always 
gets  into  the  oven  along  with  the  roast." 

Of  course  when  the  winter  came  down  the 
broad  Connecticut  River  Valley  all  the  way  from 
Canada,  ice  followed,  and  smoothed  out  all  his 
footsteps  upon  lake  and  stream.  Jeff  and  his 
three  friends,  being  at  that  happy  age  when  the 
puzzle  of  life  is  how  to  expend  the  surplus  of  it, 
hastened  to  overhaul  their  skating  tackle,  and  to 
use  whatever  spare  hours  they  could  command,  in 
staying  out  in  the  cold  and  scratching  about  on 
the  ice.  As  the  march  of  mind  had  not  omitted 
Greyford,  so  Nettie  had  learned  to  skate ;  and 
Jeff  and  she  had  some  very  nice  excursions  on  the 
broad  and  glassy  surface  of  the  Connecticut,  dur- 
ing a  "  cold  snap  "  of  a  week  or  two,  before  snow 
came.  Sometimes  the  four  young  men  went  to- 
gether ;  and  once  or  twice  a  party  of  eight  was 
organized,  each  escorting  his  steel-shod  damsel. 
All  this  mirth  and  jollity,  however,  and  other 
agreeable  things  too,  were  brought  to  a  sudden 


HO  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

close,  by  no  less  an  event  than  the  loss — or  at 
least  the  irreparable  injury  —  of  a  tall  or  stove- 
pipe hat,  and  the  consequences  thereof,  which  be- 
fell as  here  followeth. 

One  blowing  Saturday  afternoon,  when  the  early 
closing  movement  had  enabled  Jeff  to  take  an  ex- 
tra number  of  hours'  skating,  as  if  to  get  himself 
well  stiffened  up  about  the  legs  for  Sunday,  Nettie 
and  he  went  down  to  the  river  as  usual  to  skate. 
They  got  safely  out  upon  the  ice,  fastened  on 
their  skates,  and  went  careering  about  up  and 
down  before  the  docks  and  all  along  the  city  front. 
As  the  afternoon  advanced,  and  it  drew  towards 
evening,  the  dull,  gray  clouds  seemed  to  thicken ; 
the  north-wester,  which  had  been  raving  along  the 
river  all  the  afternoon,  whisking  into  small  drifts 
and  winrows  a  little  dry  snow  that  had  fallen 
within  a  day  or  two,  seemed  to  grow  stronger  and 
stronger,  instead  of  lulling  as  sunset  approached ; 
and  whistled  and  whewed  along  out  from  under 
the  heavy,  lumbering  mass  of  the  "  Great  Bridge," 
with  such  a  vengeance  that  it  really  required  a 
good  deal  of  pluck  as  well  as  muscle  to  make 
head  against  it. 

Nettie  and  Jeff  had  more  than  once  made  their 
way  defiantly  up  to  the  bridge,  in  the  very  teeth 
of  old  Boreas,  (was  he  north-west?)  and  then, 
turning,  had  spread  out  their  arms  like  sails,  and 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.          HI 

glided  victoriously  forth,  literally  upon  the  wings 
of  the  wind,  far  away  to  the  south ;  standing 
perfectly  still,  and  borne  over  the  smooth  ice  as 
swiftly  and  steadily  as  two  great  birds  in  the  air. 

What  it  was  that  made  Jeff  Fleming  wear  a 
tall  hat  out  into  that  frozen  hurricane,  it  is  useless 
to  conjecture.  Why,  indeed,  he  wore  one  at  any 
time,  or  why  any  human  being  should  do  so,  unless 
compelled  by  the  sentence  of  a  court  of  justice, 
as  Chinese  felons  go  about  with  a  thick  plank 
round  their  necks,  I  for  my  part  cannot  imagine. 
If  the  young  man  had  known  —  but  how  fortunate 
for  people  who  write  about  such  circumstances 
that  the  persons  in  question  do  not  know !  At  any 
rate,  Jeff  usually  wore  a  tall  hat,  and  with  mascu- 
line obstinacy  he  wore  it  now.  By  means  of  the 
most  energetic  jerks  he  had  seated  it  so  firmly  on 
his  head  that  it  might  well  have  been  believed 
capable  of  removal  only  "  with  it,  or  on  it,"  like 
a  good  Spartan  and  his  shield.  But  there  is,  as 
some  philosopher  has  profoundly  observed,  an 
"innate  depravity  of  inanimate  matter."  This, 
probably,  imperceptibly  loosened  the  hat.  The 
really  tremendous  cold,  in  spite  of  Jeff's  young 
blood  and  vigorous  exercise,  had,  moreover,  begun 
to  drive  the  feeling  out  of  his  forehead,  and  to  sub- 
stitute the  cold  numb  band  next  the  hat-rim, 
which  the  votaries  of  the  abominable  thing  know 


112  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

all  about,  and  which  prevented  him  from  knowing 
that  it  was  becoming  loose.  Perhaps,  too,  for 
there  are  absolutely  no  exceptions,  we  are  told, 
to  the  operations  of  the  great  natural  laws,  the 
cold  was  contracting  his  head  a  little  —  who 
knows  ?  At  any  rate,  just  as  they  swept  swiftly 
down  to  the  end  of  one  of  their  long,  southwardly 
trips,  and  whirled  round  to  fight  their  way  back 
again  against  the  vengeful  north-wester,  off  went 
Jeff's  hat,  and  bowled  away  down  the  river, 
skipping  along  and  turning  this  way  and  that  as 
if  it  were  alive  and  looking  round  with  one  great 
empty  eye  to  see  if  anybody  were  coming  after  it. 
Jeff  flung  up  one  hand  as  quick  as  lightning,  but 
too  late.  Prompt  in  deciding,  and  not  able  to 
afford  to  lose  a  nice  new  hat,  he  merely  cried  out 
to  Nettie,  "Don't  wait  —  I  '11  catch  up!"  and 
sprang  forth  after  the  fugitive. 

Nettie  stood  laughing  a  moment,  to  see  the  fun, 
but  it  was  too  cold  to  stand.  Turning  about,  she 
struck  out  with  long,  resolute  strokes,  for  the 
bridge,  and  in  a  few  seconds  was  out  of  sight 
round  a  low  woody  point. 

Twice  or  thrice  Jeff  all  but  caught  his  fleeing 
head-gear ;  and  once,  as  it  lodged  for  a  moment  in 
a  light  snow-wreath,  he  even  stooped  to  lay  hands 
on  it.  But  —  as  he  afterwards  said  in  describing 
the  experience  —  it  "laughed  right  in  his  face, 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.          Hg 

and  hopped  off  again."  It  bounded  and  rolled, 
shooting  across  broad  glassy  spaces,  vaulting  with 
diabolic  nimbleness  over  any  little  impediment, 
until  the  enraged  proprietor  almost  thought  he 
could  see  an  imp  riding  inside  of  it,  and  making 
impertinent  gestures  backward  at  him  over  the 
rim.  His  ears  quickly  began  to  tingle,  and  then 
to  lose  their  feeling,  and  he  had  ta  rub  them  furi- 
ously more  than  once.  Even  the  very  top  of  his 
head,  through  all  his  thick  hair,  began  to  feel  the 
sharp  bites  of  the  relentless  icy  wind.  Angrier 
than  ever,  he  gathered  his  strength,  filled  his 
lungs  full,  set  his  teeth,  and,  though  he  was  already 
flying  along  under  the  double  impulse  of  legs  and 
tempest  at  a  rate  that  a  locomotive  could  hardly 
have  matched,  he  darted  forward  for  one  final 
spurt  — 

And  with  barely  time  for  a  cry,  he  flew  with  a 
monstrous  plunge  away  down  into  the  deep,  dark 
blue  waters  of  Connecticut  River,  rushing,  with 
the  tremendous  momentum  of  his  speed,  twenty 
feet  beyond  the  furthest  edge  of  the  thinning 
transparent  black  ice,  that  he  had  seen  for  the 
merest  instant  beneath  his  feet,  infinitely  too  late 
for  even  an  effort  to  save  himself,  and  hardly  long 
enough,  so  lightning-quick  was  the  motion,  to 
know  that  he  was  gone. 


114  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER   XI. 

"\T  7HILE  Jeff  is  paddling  about  in  the  water, 
let  us  make  a  few  calm  observations.  We 
are  better  situated  for  that  purpose  than  he, 
although  he  may  have  the  advantage  of  us  in 
point  of  coolness.  What  he  soused  into  was  not 
what  is  called  an  "  air-hole  ;  "  it  was  a  broad  strip 
of  open  water,  stretching  across  the  whole  width 
of  the  river,  just  at  a  turn  in  the  channel,  and 
where  a  sort  of  ripple  caused  by  some  bar  or 
obstruction  at  the  bottom  had  thus  far  resisted  all 
the  powers  of  Jack  Frost.  If  this  hat-chase  of  his 
had  been  foreseen,  any  of  his  Hartford-bred  friends 
would  have  cautioned  him  about  this  bend  in  the 
river.  If  it  had  not  been  half-dark,  and  if  he  had 
not  been  so  vexed  and  eager  about  his  hat,  or  if 
he  could  possibly  have  imagined  the  existence  of 
any  such  hole  —  in  short,  if  for  any  reason  what- 
ever Jeff  had  not  done  it,  it  would  not  have  been 
done.  But  he  did ;  and  there  he  is,  at  last,  scrab- 
bling and  slopping  in  that  mush  of  ice  and  water 
that  is  working  and  rustling  along  the  edge  of  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          H5 

river  in  the  very  innermost  elbow  of  the  bend. 
Instantaneous  as  his  plunge  had  been,  and  amazing 
as  it  was,  Jeff  was  too  practised  a  swimmer  not  to 
shut  his  mouth  tight  as  he  went  under ;  and  he 
was  too  ready  and  too  strong  to  be  either  terrified 
or  paralyzed  in  mind  or  body,  as  a  feebler  person 
or  a  less  experienced  aquatic  would  have  been. 
So,  without  trying  to  free  himself  from  either 
skates  or  overcoat,  he  half  instinctively  felt  the 
truth,  that  in  that  freezing  water  no  man  could  live 
more  than  minutes  ;  and  that  if  he  got  out  at  all,  it 
must  be  at  once.  No  man  who  has  not  passed 
through  some  such  peril  understands  what  efforts 
can  be  condensed  into  seconds,  where  the  jaws  of 
death  are  even  closing  over  him.  But  the  usefulness 
of  many  a  long  run  on  land  and  many  a  long  swim 
in  the  sea  now  showed  itself.  Even  if  years  of  life 
had  been  drained  in  that  awful  struggle  of  two 
minutes,  the  victory  was  cheap.  Despite  the 
skates  (it  seemed  as  if  his  feet  weighed  a  thousand 
pounds)  ;  despite  the  weight  of  his  heavy  water- 
soaked  clothing,  he  got  his  face  above  water,  at 
one  look  saw  the  shore,  and  went  rushing  for  it 
with  desperate  leaps,  throwing  himself  along  edge- 
ways, shoulder  first,  not  able  to  surge  his  body 
above  the  water  to  the  waist,  as  he  had  often  done 
in  the  summer  waters  of  the  Sound,  but  yet  deci- 
sively mastering  the  cold,  cruel,  lapping  flood. 


116  SIX  OF  ONE  BY      ' 

He  struck  wet  clay,  both  with,  knee  and  hand, 
just  as  breath  and  strength  began  to  fail  together. 
No  human  being  can  put  forth  his  very  uttermost 
of  strength  or  motion  except  for  just  so  long  as  he 
can  hold  his  breath.  Eagerly  enough  he  scram- 
bled and  slopped  his  way  out,  clutching  ice,  mud, 
leaves,  sticks,  whatever  lay  along  that  soiled  and 
dreary  margin.  His  laden  feet  sank  and  stuck  in 
mire;  he  was  bedaubed  with  the  blue-gray  clay 
from  head  to  foot ;  but  he  had  escaped  the  deadly 
river ! 

However,  it  was  only  to  encounter  a  second  foe 
no  less  deadly.  Prompt  and  ready  as  ever,  he 
forced  his  way  up  the  frozen  slope  of  the  steep 
bank ;  sat  down  instantly,  while  his  hands  should 
retain  some  life,  and  tried  his  skate-straps.  He 
could  not  bring  his  numbing  fingers  to  bear.  He 
took  out  his  pocket-knife,  opened  it  with  his  teeth, 
and  cut  the  straps.  Already,  since  he  came  out 
of  the  water,  the  skates  had  frozen  tight  to  his 
feet,  and  he  only  knocked  them  off  with  a  despe- 
rate kick.  Then  the  idea  came  into  his  mind  that 
it  would  be  a  very  easy  thing  for  him  to  freeze  to 
death,  there  on  the  farther  side  of  the  river, 
though  within  plain  sight  of  thousands  of  the 
city's  twinkling  lights.  And  —  as  it  always  will 
be  with  some  minds  —  he  thought  of  it  as  at  once 
horrible  and  absurd;  and  he  smiled,  though  his 
teeth  were  chattering,  fearfully. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    117 

"I've  no  hat,  either!"  he  said  to  himself. 
But  he  did  not  sit  still  for  all  this,  by  any  means. 
It  was  all  in  his  mind  in  a  flash.  As  he  threw  off 
his  skates,  he  sprang  up,  his  overcoat  crackling 
and  stiff  already;  picked  the  skates  up,  thrust 
one  into  either  coat  pocket,  and  turning  north- 
ward up  the  river,  set  out  on  a  full  run.  But  as 
the  wind  met  him,  it  seemed  to  craunch  his  face 
and  his  head  too,  all  over,  all  at  once,  with  some- 
thing that,  as  he  thought,  felt  more  like  red-hot 
iron  than  arctic  cold.  It  was  again  a  question  of 
minutes ;  perhaps  Jeff  was  in  no  less  danger  than 
he  had  been  when  under  water.  But  he  stopped 
short,  tore  off  the  coat,  drew  it  together  over  his 
head,  leaving  just  room  for  one  eye  to  peep  out, 
and  once  more  struck  into  a  vigorous  run.  It  was 
useless  to  consider  whether  he  could  get  home. 
He  must  run,  until  he  could  run  no  more,  unless 
he  reached  help  before  his  running  was  exhausted. 

He  had  gone  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  shel- 
tered somewhat  for  part  of  the  way  by  a  thin 
growth  of  willows,  and,  fortunately,  finding  but 
few  fences  to  climb  over,  when,  as  he  ranged  up 
opposite  the  great  Arms  Factory,  he  began  to  feel 
that  he  had  not  running  enough  left  in  him  to  get 
up  opposite  the  heart  of  the  city  and  so  on  to  his 
rooms.  There  were  no  houses  in  sight  on  his  side 
of  the  river;  for  all  the  land  is  meadow,  flooded 


118  SIX  OF  ONE  BY. 

deep  in  the  high  spring  freshets ;  nor  any  road,  nor 
living  thing. 

"  There  's  just  one  thing  to  do,"  reflected  Jeff. 
"  I  '11  cross  here  and  make  straight  for  Aunt 
Helen's." 

No  sooner  said  than  done.  He  turned  short,  ran 
down  the  bank,  here  sloping  and  sandy,  hurried 
out  upon  the  river,  not  without  a  sort  of  horror  of 
it,  crossed  over,  climbed  the  dyke,  made  his  way 
up  the  first  cross-street,  and  after  asking  the  road 
of  half  a  do2en  different  citizens,  all  of  them 
scared  enough,  to  be  accosted  by  an  apparently 
headless  apparition,  like  a  pedestrian  Brom  Bones, 
and  all  icy  and  crackling  as  it  hurried  along,  he 
rang  furiously  at  the  door  of  Deacon  Tarbox's 
snug  mansion. 

The  deacon  himself  opened  it. 

"  Please  let  me  in !  "  said  poor  Jeff,  not  very 
ready  with  his  etiquette  at  the  moment. 

"  Who  are  you?  "  demanded  the  startled  deacon, 
—  not  so  brave  in  mere  physical  matters  as  in  those 
of  conscience.  But  it  was  not  the  custom  to  re- 
fuse charity  at  that  house,  though  it  was  not  the 
custom  to  administer  it  at  the  principal  entrance. 

"Who  are  you?  Go  round  to  the  back-door." 
And  partly  irritated  at  what  he  conceived  to  be 
the  presumptuousness  of  the  applicant,  and  a  lit- 
tle dismayed  withal  by  the  uncouthness  of  tliis 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          H9 

goblin,  with  its  one  eye  peeping  out  through  the 
opening  of  the  coat,  he  drove  the  door  to  with  a 
most  peremptory  and  undeacon-like  slam. 

Half  dead  as  he  was,  Jeff  laughed  within  him- 
self as  he  dragged  himself  round  the  corner  of  the 
house  —  for,  as  is  natural,  having  now  reached 
succor,  the  effect  of  the  tremendous  strain  which 
his  frame  had  undergone  began  to  come  down  upon 
him  with  a  suddenness  that  he  did  not  at  all  under- 
stand. He  reached  the  back-door,  however,  just 
as  the  deacon  opened  it  with  a  rather  stern  — 

"  This  is  the  proper  door  for  "  — 

He  did  not  finish  his  sentence.  As  he  opened 
the  door,  a  tall  figure  swayed  gently  forward  against 
it,  then  toppled  over  against  him,  and  slid  down  to 
the  floor,  crackling  somewhat,  in  a  heap. 

"  Dead  drunk !  "  muttered  the  deacon  to  him- 
self, with  disgust  and  horror  ;  and  his  first  thought 
was  to  bundle  the  beggar-man  out  upon  the  steps 
and  shut  the  door.  Then  the  deacon  bethought 
him  of  the  fearful  cold  of  the  weather ;  he  had 
kept  a  daily  thermometrical  and  meteorological  re- 
cord for  fifty  years  in  that  very  house ;  and 
considering  that  a  few  seconds  more  or  less  was 
nothing  to  the  victim  of  King  Alcohol,  he  stepped 
to  a  window  close  by,  just  outside  of  which  hung 
his  record  thermometer,  and  inspected  it  through 
the  glass. 


120  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  Whew !  "  whistled  the  old  deacon  to  himself, 
—  "  fifteen  degrees  below !  He  wouldn't  last  long 
out  there ! " 

And  setting  down  his  lamp,  with  reluctant  hands, 
and  a  face  puckered  into  lines  of  contemptuous 
abhorrence  enough  for  at  least  one  hundred  ordi- 
nary deacons,  Deacon  Tarbox  bent  over  the  person 
on  the  floor,  and  essayed  to  draw  the  coat  from  his 
face.  The  first  time  he  let  go  in  astonishment. 

"  Why,  it 's  frozen  as  stiff  as  an  oak  plank !  " 

A  second  stouter  pull  uncovered  the  face. 

"  Helen,  here  !  Here,  this  minute  !  Lord-a- 
massy  on  us !  It 's  Jeff  Fleming  I  " 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.    121 


CHAPTER   XII. 

TT  is  needless  to  describe  the  emotions  of  Aunt 
A  Helen,  or  of  Nettie,  who,  after  delaying  a  few 
minutes  at  the  river,  had  sensibly  come  home  by 
herself,  rather  than  wait,  or  speculate  longer  on 
the  strange  delay  of  her  escort.  The  emotions  of 
Yankee  women  do  not  make  them  useless  ;  and  first 
of  all,  they  set  sharply  to  work  with  the  aid  of  the 
deacon,  to  take  care  of  their  strangely  costumed 
visitor.  Amongst  them,  they  hoisted  the  young 
man  upon  a  lounge  which  they  set  before  the 
kitchen  fire,  and  stripping  off  his  outer  garments, 
and  packing  him  with  hot  blankets,  he  soon  recov- 
ered his  senses  and  told  his  story. 

"  We  should  be  very  thankful  to  Almighty  God 
for  sparing  your  life,"  said  the  deacon  solemnly. 

"  No  doubt,"  assented  Jeff;  and,  as  the  deacon 
turned  to  say  something  to  Aunt  Helen,  he  added 
under  his  breath  to  Nettie,  — 

"And  for  letting  me  get  into  danger,  too; 
oughtn't  I  ?  " 

"Hush!"  said  Nettie.  What  else  could  she 
say? 


122       .  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"I'm  going  to  get  a  soft  hat,"  continued  Jeff. 
"  A  tall  hat  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare." 

"Still,"  remarked  Deacon  Tarbox,  "I  have 
hitherto  found  mine  safe  enough  on  dry  land." 

"  Deacon,"  said  Jeff,  "  go  a-skating  with  us  next 
Saturday  afternoon,  will  you  ?  " 

The  Deacon  smiled  at  the  young  joker ;  it  was 
unnecessary  to  say  any  thing. 

"  Well,"  observed  Jeff  after  a  little,  "  I  believe 
I  'm  all  right,  auntie.  I  'm  sorry  to  have  made 
you  so  much  trouble,  .and  slopped  up  your  nice 
clean  kitchen  so." 

"  Don't  say  a  single  word  about  it,"  interrupted 
the  good  old  lady. 

"  Well,  auntie,  I  '11  do  as  much  for  you  some 
time,  then.  I  guess  I  '11  go  up  street  now,  at  any 
rate."  And  he  essayed  to  rise,  but  sank  back, 
looking  up  at  Aunt  Helen  with  a  face  of  such  queer 
astonishment  that  she  laughed. 

"  You  '11  go  straight  to  bed  —  that 's  what  you  '11 
do,"  said  she,  with  decision :  "  and  lie  there  all  day 
to-morrow,  if  necessary,  too.  Nettie,  come  and 
help  me  get  the  south  chamber  ready." 

In  truth,  the  young  man's  strength  seemed  to 
have  dissolved  away  as  if  it  had  melted  with  the 
ice  on  his  clothes.  His  hands  would  hardly  close 
on  the  back  of  the  lounge,  as  he  tried  to  help  him- 
self to  a  sitting  posture ;  he  seemed  to  have  no 


•  HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.  '   123 

spine  ;  his  legs  he  could  hardly  move  at  all.  And 
as  besides  he  began  now  to  feel  intolerably  sleepy, 
he  was  quite  unable  to  oppose  the  purpose  of  his 
hosts,  even  if  it  had  been  less  obviously  necessary 
than  it  was.  So  they  got  out  the  old-fashioned 
warming-pan,  and  inspired  with  genial  warmth  the 
cool  depths  of  the  great  old-fashioned  bed  in  the 
guest-chamber ;  made  a  nice  little  fire  in  the  stove  ; 
and  then  deputed  the  deacon  to  act  as  his  "  grim 
chamberlain,"  and  see  the  patient  safe  under  the 
bed-clothes.  Even  with  the  deacon's  aid,  it  was 
not  without  a  good  deal  of  effort  that  Jeff  crawled 
upstairs,  undressed  himself,  and  got  into  bed. 

Few  people  know,  when  they  stop  at  any  place, 
how  long  they  are  to  stay.  Jeff  called  at  Aunt 
Helen's  to  get  dried  and  warmed,  as  the  great  and 
good  Dr.  Isaac  Watts  went  to  Sir  Thomas  Abney's 
for  a  visit.  He  did  not,  like  the  famous  divine, 
stay  all  his  life,  and  at  last  die  in  these  casual 
quarters,  but  he  staid  all  night,  and  then  staid  ten 
weeks ;  and  he  came  near  enough  to  dying,  be- 
sides. Before  morning  he  was  taken  with  very 
sharp  pains  in  his  chest, — indeed,  he  waked  up 
all  of  a  sudden  towards  daylight  with  a  howl 
evoked  by  the  first  of  them,  and  that  evoked  be- 
sides a  couple  of  extraordinary  old  ghosts  in  white 
to  his  bedside  in  a  twinkling  —  to  wit,  the  deacon 


124  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

and  Mrs.  Tarbox.  There  was  110  help  for  it,  how- 
ever ;  the  old  lady,  an  experienced  nurse,  said  it 
was  —  to  use  her  orthoepy  —  peeripanewmony. 
She  was  right  in  the  diagnosis,  though  obsolescent 
as  to  nomenclature.  After  a  pretty  tough  siege 
with  flannels  dipped  in  hot  Avater,  the  doctor 
came,  and  on  examining  the  patient  and  hearing 
the  story,  looked  solemn,  prescribed,  and,  after 
getting  downstairs,  questioned  Aunt  Helen  closely 
about  any  family  tendencies  to  lung  disease. 
There  had  been  one  or  two  cases,  it  appeared, 
within  a  generation  or  two.  "  Then,"  said  the 
doctor,  "  we  must  be  all  the  more  careful ;  that 's 
all.  One  thing  is  in  his  favor,  —  he  has  plenty  of 
strength,  and,  I  judge,  perfectly  clean  health.  So 
no  need  to  be  frightened  at  present,  though  he  's 
a  pretty  sick  man." 

You  see,  the  doctor  knew  Aunt  Helen.  Doc- 
tors will  talk  pretty  plainly  to  people  that  they 
know  are  safe  ;  none  are  more  close-mouthed,  how- 
ever, to  fools. 

Well,  Jeff  had  a  long  fight  with  the  cruel  enemy 
that  had  seized  him.  As  often  happens  where 
people  have  never  been  ill,  disease  seemed  to  take 
his  physical  frame  by  surprise,  and  to  master  it 
and  ravage  it  before  it  could  organize  its  defence, 
like  a  horde  of  barbarians  swooping  down  without 
notice  upon  a  wealthy  and  peaceful  laud.  When 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     125 

once,  however,  the  assault  was  exhausted,  though 
it  left  him  for  the  time  being  a  mere  phantom  of 
himself,  his  recovery  was  steady  and  natural. 
All  the  time  he  was  incessantly  nursed  and  petted, 
by  the  deacon  and  the  two  women.  Their  care, 
the  doctor  said,  certainly  shortened  his  imprison- 
ment a  fortnight ;  and  he  jocosely  threatened  to 
collect  of  them  a  suitable  addition  to  his  fees. 
Throughout  the  first  stage  of  the  disease,  there 
was  nothing  for  them  to  do  except  to  be  strict  in 
following  the  doctor's  directions,  and  to  wait. 
But  when  the  danger  and  the  pain  were  over,  and 
the  time  came  when  only  weakness  was  left,  and 
the  sick  man  could  begin  by  tiny  gradations  to 
resume  something  of  the  enjoying  part  of  life, 
though  at  first  with  a  passiveness  much  more  com- 
plete than  that  of  an  infant,  then  came  the  empire 
of  the  women.  Except  the  transactions  of  a 
mother  over  her  child,  nothing  can  exceed  the 
proud  authority,  and  immense  sense  of  fulfilling  a 
destiny,  which  a  woman  displays  in  tending  a 
sick  person,  —  more  especially  if  it  is  a  favorite 
and  a  man.  Why  not?  As  the  stoical  stock- 
broker observed  on  hearing  the  roar  of  the  lions, 
"  Let  'em  roar,  for  that '«  their  biz."  Nor  was  the 
deacon  a  whit  behindhand,  according  to  his  lights. 
To  be  sure,  he  would  have  made  a  very  poor  fist 
at  displaying  the  occasional  bouquets  of  hot-house 


126  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

flowers  with  which  Nettie  used  now  and  then  to 
beautify  the  room ;  and  as  he  was  one  of  those 
opprobriums  of  the  late  Lowell  Mason,  who  can't 
sing,  nor  learn  to  sing,  any  more  than  a  three- 
cornered  file  working  across  a  handsaw,  so  he 
would  have  made  wild  work  with  Nettie's  ever 
ready  songs.  Nor  could  he  compound  the  magical 
confections  of  every  kind,  wherewith  dear  old 
Aunt  Helen  used  to  gratify  his  appetite,  that  grew 
more  and  more  ravenous  as  he  gathered  strength, 
the  old  lady  sitting  by  in  the  extremest  happiness 
while  he  demolished  in  five  minutes  some  delicacy 
whose  harmless  and  nourishing  yet  flavorsome 
quality  had  occupied  her,  more  or  less,  very  likely, 
for  half  a  day. 

But  the  deacon  could  talk,  and  he  could  read 
aloud ;  and,  when  Jeff  gathered  strength  enough, 
he  used  to  take  his  turn  in  these  employments 
with  the  ladies  ;  and  the  kind  old  soul  was  just  as 
happy  in  it  as  they  were. 

"  You  are  three  angels,  you  three,"  said  Jeff 
one  day,  as  they  all  stood  at  his  bedside.  "  I 
didn't  know  there  were  any  such  people  in  the 
world."  And  the  tears  stood  in  his  eyes  ;  for  when 
one  is  so  very  weak,  one  fries  very  easily.  How- 
ever Jeff  laughed  too,  though  rather  feebly,  and 
finished  his  extravaganza.  "  When  you  three  get  to 
heaven,  you  won't  know  the  difference,  for  you 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    127 

can't  be  a  bit  better  than  you  are  now,  and 
you  won't  find  you  're  a  bit  better  thought  of. 
Angels  are  plenty  there ;  stay  here,  where  you  are 
needed." 

As  for  the  choice  of  reading,  Nettie  brought 
mild  new  novels  from  the  Young  Men's  Institute 
Library.  She  got  pretty  much  whatever  she 
wanted  from  kind-hearted  Mr.  Boltwood,  for  the 
sake  of  the  sick  man,  who  was  one  of  his  con- 
stituents, and  a  favorite,  —  as  he  was,  in  fact,  with 
everybody  who  knew  him.  Aunt  Helen  used  to 
listen  a  while,  sometimes,  to  these  wonderful  pro- 
ductions ;  but  her  sound  sense  and  practical  piety 
were  usually  unable  to  bear  the  unnatural  atmos- 
phere very  long.  She  would  shake  her  head,  and 
rise  and  depart,  saying,  that,  for  her  part,  she 
thought  that  there  must  be  a  special  providence 
for  young  folks  nowadays,  to  preserve  them 
through  all  the  nonsense  they  read.  Her  selec- 
tions were  different ;  she  often  chose  some  book 
of  travels  in  the  Holy  Land  or  the  East ;  such  as 
Warren's  "  Recovery  of  Jerusalem,"  which,  in 
spite  of  its  dry  method  and  confused  arrangement, 
she  read  —  as  it  deserves  —  with  close  attention 
and  great  delight,  from  title-page  to  finis.  The 
story  of  the  wonderful  Moabite  stone,  too,  en- 
chanted her,  Jeff  insisted,  exactly  as  "  Robinson 
Crusoe"  or  the  "Arabian  Nights"  does  a  small 


128  BIZ  OF  ONE  BY 

boy.  So  did  Rawlinson's  "  Five  Great  Monarch- 
ies," and  any  other  books  she  could  get  hold  of, 
of  the  class  which  may  be  called  unintentional 
illustrations  of  Scripture.  And,  indeed,  they  are 
the  best  supports  and  the  best  commentaries  on 
that  wonderful  book,  the  unitary  and  symmetrical 
heart-growth  and  chronicle  of  sixteen  hundred 
years  of  the  existence  of  man,  and  of  God's 
words  and  works  through  him.  The  deacon, 
again,  chose  an  entirely  different  department ; 
and  by  the  way,  Jeff  showed  his  natural  tact  — 
unless  it  was  merely  the  languid  passiveness  of  an 
invalid  —  in  allowing  his  three  angels  to  choose 
their  own  respective  fields  wherein  to  expatiate. 
The  deacon  always  read  him,  firstly,  the  daily 
paper,  —  one  New  York  one  and  one  Hartford 
one,  —  and  many  a  shrewd  and  dry  comment  did 
he  make  upon  the  chronicles  of  events,  and  then 
upon  the  use  which  the  editors,  those  prophets  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  made  of  them  in  the  edi- 
torial columns.  When  this  was  not  enough,  —  to 
tell  the  truth  it  usually  was,  —  the  good  old  man 
used  to  confer  upon  Jeff  his  greatest  literary  favor. 
That  is  to  say,  he  would  read  to  him  his  own  daily 
portion,  which  he  always  took  in  course,  of  the 
"Exposition  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments," 
by  that  great  and  sound  divine,  the  Rev.  Matthew 
Henry.  Of  this  monumental  work,  the  worthy 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    129 

deacon  possessed  a  noble  copy  of  the  London 
edition  of  1761,  in  five  volumes  folio.  In  this  in- 
structive commentary,  the  deacon  was  accustomed 
to  read  a  suitable  portion  every  evening  before 
family  prayers,  sometimes  to  himself,  and,  oc- 
casionally, when  he  lighted  upon  some  striking 
passage,  aloud,  for  the  good  of  whomsoever  it 
might  concern.  No  wonder  the  deacon  loved  it, 
and  had  already  read  it  through  in  course  three 
times,  being  now  well  advanced  in  the  fourth ; 
for,  as  he  was  accustomed  to  say  with  devout 
thankfulness,  it  was,  under  God,  due  to  the 
weighty  reasonings,  and  powerful  applications  of. 
that  book,  that  in  his  youth  he  had  been  brought 
to  a  realizing  sense  of  his  lost  state,  and  ultimately 
to  a  trembling  hope  that  he  had  laid  fast  hold 
upon  eternal  life.  It  used  to  put  Jeff  asleep. 

Nothing  has  thus  far  been  said  of  two  concern- 
ments wherewith  it  might  seem  that  Jeff  should 
have  had  something  to  do  during  this  illness  of 
his ;  namely,  his  own  family,  and  Jane  Burgess. 
Reason  enough :  Jeff  had  no  family ;  and  it  was 
this  solitary  position  of  his  in  the  world  which 
caused  the  simple,  hearty,  genuine,  old-fashioned 
New  England  kindness  of  Deacon  Tarbox's  family 
to  make  all  the  more  impression  upon  him.  Both 
his  parents  had  died  long  ago ;  he  had  indeed  been 
brought  up  in  great  measure  by  some  excellent 
6*  i 


130  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

people,  who  had  been  friends  of  his  father  and 
mother,  and  who  treated  him  with  helpful  kind- 
ness, and  shrewdly  managed  his  little  inheritance. 
But  they  were  not  letter-writing  persons ;  and,  in 
fact,  neither  were  Deacon  nor  Mrs.  Tarbox.  The 
news  of  Jeffs  illness  went  to  Greyford  in  Nettie's 
letters  to  her  father,  therefore,  but  as  the  young 
man  was  in  the  best  possible  hands,  neither  letters 
nor  visits  were  made  necessary,  and  none  came. 
As  for  Jane  Burgess,  she  was  also  far  less  of  a 
letter-writer  than  Nettie  or  Rachel.  Besides,  she 
was  enveloped  —  as  all  of  us  are  in  this  world  —  in 
webs  of  circumstance ;  things  had  been  happening 
to  her  in  Boston,  for  an  account  of  "Which  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  next  chapter. 

After  Jeff  Fleming  had  removed  to  his  own 
room  at  the  Dove-cot  again,  had  resumed  his  usual 
employment  at  the  store,  and  was  rapidly  laying 
hold  once  more  upon  all  the  avocations  of  his  busy 
life,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  still  feel  far 
more  as  if  Deacon  Tarbox's  house  was  his  home, 
than  as  if  he  was  a  stranger  there ;  so  he  was  at 
the  house  even  more  frequently  than  before  his  ill- 
ness, with  or  without  any  excuse. 

One  pleasant  evening,  when  the  Deacon  and  his 
wife  had  gone  out  to  an  evening  meeting  at  the 
South  Church,  Jeff  and  Nettie  sat  chatting  alone 
in  the  "  keeping-room." 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     131 

"  Nettie,"  said  Jeff,  "  I  always  used  to  be  afraid 
of  you.  I  thought  you  were  a  sharp-tempered  girl, 
and  you  certainly  used  to  snap  like  a  pea  in  a  hot 
skillet  sometimes.  Have  you  grown  quiet?  I 
don't  inquire  whether  you  have  grown  sweet-tem- 
pered, for  I  have  found  out  that  you  always  were 
that.'" 

"  I  think  I  have  grown  quiet,"  said  Nettie, 
blushing.  "  I  love  Aunt  Helen  ;  and  I  believe  it 
would  make  anybody  quiet,  and  good  too,  to  live 
with  her.  But  I  "am  able  to  snap,  as  you  call  it, 
on  occasion." 

"  No,  please.  At  least,  Nettie,  I  don't  mean  to 
give  you  any  occasion  to  snap  me.  I  like  you 
ever  so  much  better  as  you  are.  It  is  like  finding 
a  sweet  heart  inside  of — no;  nobody  can  fancy 
you  with  a  rough  outside." 

"  Nor  a  sweetheart,  either,"  said  Nettie,  twisting 
his  words. 

Jeff  answered,  this  time  with  something  very 
much  like  a  blush  on  his  part,  — 

"  It  would  not  be  right  to  fancy  you  a  sweet- 
heart, Nettie.  Nothing  less  respectful  than  a 
strong  love  and  a  deep  longing  should  be  offered 
to  you ;  a  fancy  for  you  would  be  an  impertinence. 
You  are  too  good." 

"  Well,  Jeff,"  replied  the  young  lady,  "  I  don't 
know  why  you  should  say  all  the  pretty  things. 


132  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Thank  you  very  much  for  so  many  compliments ; 
and  you  shall  have  one  for  yourself.  Aunt  Helen 
was  saying  to-day  that  she  never  in  her  life  saw  a 
man  before  that  was  perfectly  good-natured  and 
patient  in  sickness.  So  that  you  are  angel  number 
four,  you  see." 

"  Ah,  Nettie !  "  he  said,  with  a  good  deal  of 
emotion,  "  unless  you  have  lived  all  your  life  with 
strangers,  you  don't  know  how  such  good  deeds  as 
yours  and  Aunt  Helen's  make  a  person  good.  I 
imagine  you  people  would  make  Judas  Iscariot 
into  the  best  creature  in  the  world.  I  couldn't 
have  been  cross  with  you  or  her  by  me,  any  more 
than  water  could  freeze  in  the  fire.  It  wasn't  I 
that  was  sweet-tempered;  it  was  you." 

"  Aren't  you  going  to  allow  any  thing  at  all  for 
uncle  ?  "  said  Nettie,  who,  so  differently  from  most 
handsome  young  women,  heartily  liked  to  be 
praised,  and  was  no  more  inclined  to  resent  Jeff's 
pretty  speeches  than  a  house-cat  is  to  resent 
stroking. 

"  Yes,  indeed.  Haven't  I  always  reckoned  him 
one  of  the  angels  of  this  house  ?  But  it 's  queer 

—  I  can't  be  near  as  fond  of  him  as  I  can  of  Aunt 
Helen  and  you.     He  isn't  so  pretty.     He  isn't  so 
nice  to  kiss." 

"  You  don't  know,  sir.     I  like  to  kiss  him." 

"  Well,  Nettie,  you  may  kiss  him  for  me,  then, 

—  I  wish"  — 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    133 

"What?" 

"  I  mean,  won't  you  give  me  a  little  music  ?  " 

"  Certainly."  And  she  opened  the  piano  and 
sat  down ;  looking  up  at  him  as  he  took  his  usual 
place  behind  her  left  shoulder,  with  a  smile  that 
was  sunshine  itself.  "  What  shall  it  be  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,  Nettie." 

"  Well,  then,  take  my  last  piano  solo,  to  begin 
with." 

She  played  a  "  Hungarian  March."  At  least, 
that  was  the  name  printed  on  it,  and  it  was  written 
on  the  square-built  "  four-four "  basis  which  is 
called  "  march  time ; "  but  nevertheless  it  was  a 
wild,  sweet,  strange  melody  too,  such  as  might  be 
imagined  to  have  arisen  in  the  heart  of  some  gypsy 
musician  uttering  the  nameless  yearnings  of  his 
mystic  Oriental  soul,  amid  the  rich  influences  of 
sunny  vineyards  and  glorious  rivers  in  the  noble 
land  of  Hungary. 

"O  Nettie!"  said  Jeff;  "once  more,  please." 
Music  which  is  very  beautiful  calls  upon  those 
who  are  sensitive  to -it,  with  a  voice  that  is  almost 
a  sharp  pain.  It  searches  the  depths  of  pure 
emotion,  very  far  below  the  shallow  ripples  of 
criticising  judgment  or  even  of  conscious  observa- 
tion. Jeff  Fleming's  voice  was  unsteady,  but  the 
trifling  words  were  full  of  pleading,  —  if  pleading 
had  been  necessary.  In  truth,  the  very  lovely 


134  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

music  was  breaking  the  ice  in  another  realm  than 
that  of  the  wintry  river ;  and  Nettie,  who  felt  the 
music,  perhaps,  even  more  than  he,  without  know- 
ing it,  felt  that  there  was  more  pleading  in  the 
request  than  merely  for  a  few  measures  of  music. 
She  shivered  slightly,  but  only  answered,  — 

"  Yes,  certainly."  Could  she  have  had  a  double 
meaning?  Could  she  have  felt  —  not  perceived  — 
any  unspoken  wishes  from  her  companion  ?  And 
she  played  the  piece  again,  the  delicate,  firm 
fingering,  the  unusually  quiet  movements  of  her 
shapely  smooth  fingers  upon  the  keys,  adding  that 
curious  magic  to  the  music  which  depends  upon 
the  appearance  of  producing  much  effect  with  little 
motion.  This  time,  neither  of  them  said  a  word ; 
but  each  knew  that  the  other  was  greatly  moved. 

Without  speaking,  Nettie  modulated  through  a 
few  soft  chords,  paused  a  moment,  and  played 
another  piece,  belonging  in  the  same  chapter  of 
sentiment  with  the  former,  yet  sadder.  It  was  so 
much  more  melancholy,  in  fact,  that  when  the  last 
soft  cadence  ended,  and  Nettie's  hands  lay  motion- 
less upon  the  keys  of  the  final  chord,  Jeff  said,  as 
if  speaking  to  himself,  — 

«  Why  —  it  is  all  full  of  tears." 

Nettie,  with  a  little  start,  turned  back  the  open 
leaf,  arid  pointed  to  the  title.  "Les  Larmes,"  it 
read. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          135 

She  looked  up  once  more,  into  Jeff's  face,  half 
turning  round  upon  the  piano-stool.  Jeff  could 
see  that  her  long  dark  eyelashes  were  wet. 

"  Do  you  feel  it  so  much  too  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Indeed,  yes,"  she  said ;  and  added,  with  her 
sunshiny  smile,  "  But  if  you  can  tell  so  well  what 
the  music  says,  what  was  the  other?  " 

The  witch !  I  half  believe  she  knew  what  she 
was  about.  Jeff  looked  down  into  her  eyes  for  a 
moment. 

"May  I  tell  you?" 

She  could  not  quite  frame  to  say  yes ;  she  said 
not  a  word.  Her  eyes  fell ;  but  Jeff  quickly  but 
lightly  passed  his  arms  around  her,  and  kissed  her 
beautiful  red  lips  three  times. 

"  The  music  said  it,  Nettie,"  he  said,  as  she 
sprang  up,  but  he  caught  her  hand.  "  I  say  it  for 
myself,  too,  Nettie.  I  love  you.  Mayn't  I  ?  " 

It  is  of  course  possible  that  if  the  old  people  had 
staid  at  home,  and  the  piano  had  been  kept  shut, 
Nettie  and  Jeff  would  not  have  become  engaged  to 
each  other,  at  least  not  that  night.  As  it  was, 
they  did. 


136  SIX  OF  ONE  B7 


CHAPTEE  XHI. 

TT  was  Jane's  first  visit  with  her  sister  Sophy. 
Also  it  was  her  sister's  first  winter  in  Boston. 

Ned  Bardies  had  made  his  fortune  in  Cottons- 
wick,  where  he  lived  over  a  dozen  years.  Since 
then  he  had  been  a  year  in  St.  Louis ;  afterwards, 
he  and  his  wife  spent  six  months  in  Paris.  This 
was  very  convenient  for  Mrs.  Bardies,  because  she 
could  pick  up  all  her  furniture  there  for  the  house 
Ned  had  been  building  on  the  new  land.  For  the 
original  Bardleses  were  Boston  people. 

Happily  it  was  a  large  house,  for  it  was  one 
through  which  the  whole  Bardies  family  swept, 
from  morning  till  night.  Aunts,  uncles,  cousins, 
sisters,  sisters-in-law,  and  brothers  ditto,  made  it 
their  grand  central  rendezvous.  It  might  be  called 
the  Bardies  highway.  There  were  walls  to  the 
house ;  but  they  shut  in  and  never  shut  out. 

Not  that  Ned  Bardies  showed  a  special  partiality 
for  his  own  family,  but  there  were  so  many  of 
them !  And  only  Jane  and  her  aunt  on  the 
Burgess  side.  It  was  Ned  who  had  suggested  that 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    137 

Jane  should  come  and  spend  the  winter  with  them. 
Sophy  had  determined  that  she  would  bring  his 
youngest  sister,  Christine,  into  society  that  very 
winter,  and  she  was  to  be  with  them  for  the  grand 
object  of  her  coming  out.  Ned  had  said  that  he 
did  not  think  it  was  fair  to  have  Christine  all  that 
time,  unless  Sophy  had  as  long  a  visit  from  her 
sister.  So  it  was  settled  they  should  both  be 
asked ;  and  in  the  preparations  for  receiving  them, 
if  Sophy  selected  any  thing  particularly  pretty  for 
the  room  she  was  fitting  up  for  Christine,  Ned  was 
sure  to  find  the  counterpart  of  it,  —  perhaps  a 
little  bit  more  costly,  for  Jane's. 

Let  us  explain  that  Ned  Bardies  was  by  no 
means  what  would  be  called  a  liberal  man.  He 
had  made  every  cent  of  his  money  himself,  and 
all  too  carefully,  one  by  one,  not  to  know  the  value 
of  every  coin  of  it.  But  he  was  just  beginning 
to  enjoy  the  charm  of  spending,  and  finding  out 
how  large  his  "  margin "  was.  It  is  not  every 
millionaire  that  reaches  this  bit  of  knowledge,  to 
be  sure.  But,  again,  he  might  not  have  been  so 
liberal,  had  Jane  been  in  any  way  dependent  upon 
him.  Happily  the  Burgess  property  had  cut  up 
well  between  the  two  daughters.  Jane  for  the 
first  time  began  to  appreciate  this  when  she  came 
to  stay  with  her  brother-in-law.  She  had  before 
felt  the  comfortable  consciousness  of  owning -prop- 


138  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

erty, —  of  the  family  mansion,  that  could  always 
be  a  roof  for  her  old  age  ;  but  the  activity  of  the 
Bardies  establishment  suddenly  showed  her  the 
outside  charm  of  money,  its  pleasant  chink,  and 
the  delight  of  changing  the  coin  for  some  equiva- 
lent. Jane  did  not  get  away  from  Greyford  till 
the  winter  was  half  over,  when  an  old  widow 
friend  of  her  aunt's  had  turned  up  to  stay  some 
months,  with  her  two  daughters,  and  there  was  no 
special  reason  why  Jane  should  be  needed  there. 

Jane  Burgess  was  one  of  those  receptive  beings 
in  whom  everybody  confides.  She  was  never  a 
confidant,  because  she  was  never  in  the  habit  of 
telling  her  own  secrets  to  another ;  but,  if  such  a 
villanous  word  could  be  allowed,  she  was  a  faithful 
confidee.  She  could  not  sit  in  a  railroad-station 
two  minutes,  but  what  some  Irish  mother  had 
given  her  all  her  history.  Indeed,  she  knew  the 
heart's  romance  of  that  stoical  creature  who  keeps 
the  ladies'  room  of  the  station.  It  was  also  as- 
serted that  a  horse-car  conductor  had  one  day 
sat  down  by  her  side,  to  tell  her  about  his  wife's 
breaking  her  leg.  She  knew  the  sorrows  and  joys 
of  everybody  in  Greyford.  Therefore  she  had  not 
been  in  her  sister's  house  more  than  a  week,  before 
she  had  been  consulted  by  every  member  of  the 
family,  about  some  little  intricacy.  This  was  for- 
tunate for  Jane,  because  the  first  morning  after 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     139 

her  arrival,  when  they  were  fairly  through  break- 
fast, and  she  stood  for  a  few  moments  at  the 
Low-window,  looking  down  the  broad  street,  she 
suddenly  felt  all  the  loneliness  of  a  new  place.  A 
bit  of  home-sickness  came  over  her  for  dear  old 
Greyford,  where  she  had  her  set  of  friends  who 
really  needed  her.  "  Nobody  wants  me  here,"  she 
said  to  herself. 

Sophy,  to  be  sure,  was  full  of  occupation,  not 
merely  with  her  six  children  in  the  nursery,  and 
the  six  servants  who  were  to  oversee  them,  but 
with  the  successive  demands  of  each  day :  there 
was  evidently  plenty  to  do.  At  the  breakfast- 
table  the  plans  for  the  day  had  been  talked  over ; 
and  the  question  was,  which  of  all  the  proposed 
things  could  be  done,  and  how  every  thing  could 
be  got  into  one  short  day.  Sophy  had  left  the 
table,  saying,  "  Well,  it 's  no  use  planning ;  some- 
body will  be  in  and  change  it  all.  There  's  only 
one  thing  certain,  —  we  shan't  do  what  we  have 
settled  to  do." 

Now,  this  was  just  what  Jane  hated.  So  she 
said  to  herself,  as  she  stood  by  the  window.  She 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  leading  a  well-ordered  life. 
She  had  her  Monday  duties,  as  well  as  her  Sunday 
ones ;  and  could  sit  down  Saturday  evening,  with 
her  work-basket  well  cleared  out,  and  a  feeling 
that  the  week  and  its  work  had  been  smoothed  off 


140  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

even.  What  was  she  going  to  do  in  this  grand 
chaos,  where  there  was  no  especial  orbit  marked 
out  for  herself,  but,  what  was  worse,  those  that 
had  orbits  amused  themselves  by  dashing  into 
those  of  other  people  ?  It  ended,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  her  becoming  the  confessor  of  all.  Her  reverie 
of  the  first  morning  had  been  broken  by  Christine's 
exclamation,  — 

"  Now,  Miss  Burgess,  do  give  me  your  opinion ! 
Shall  it  be  green,  or  blue  ?  they  are  equally  becom- 
ing to  me." 

Before  the  end  of  the  week  Christine  was  calling 
her  "  Jeanie,"  a  shortening  of  her  name,  and  an 
endearment,  that  nobody  had  ever  ventured  on 
before. 

Sophy  had  confided  to  her  that  she  hoped  Chris- 
tine would  marry  a  certain  Mr.  Archer,  a  second 
cousin  of  the  Bardies  family,  whom  she  thought 
every  thing  of ;  and  she  hoped  Jane  would  do  all 
she  could  to  assist  her. 

Ned  had  introduced  another  young  man  to  Jane 
with  especial  pomp  and  ceremony,  afterwards 
explaining  to  her  that  his  prospects  were  admi- 
rable, and  his  family  of  the  best,  whom,  he  had 
settled,  would  just  do  for  Christine. 

Meanwhile  Christine  had  confided  to  Jane  her 
own  little  passion,  —  quite  another  "party." 

Each  of  Mr.  Bardles's  three  married  sisters  took 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    141 

Jane  to  drive,  in  their  respective  cqup£s,  on  several 
afternoons,  and  each  gave  her  the  history  of  their 
prosperity,  and  their  plans  for  the  rest  of  the 
family.  His  two  married  brothers,  living  one  on 
each  side  of  him,  told  her  almost  every  day  what 
they  were  worth. 

She  knew  which  was  the  favorite  chair  of  the 
old-bachelor  uncle,  and  could  make  the  deaf  old 
aunt  hear.  Aunt  Maria,  who  always  had  some- 
thing severe  to  say  to  her  nephews  and  nieces, 
managed  to  hear  whatever  she  was  not  expected 
to ;  just  as  it  is  the  near-sighted  people  who  pick 
up  the  pins,  and  see  the  basting- threads.  The  lit- 
tle crippled  nephew,  who  was  lifted  out  of  the 
carriage,  and  laid  tenderly  on  the  sofa,  to  spend 
the  day  with  Aunt  Sophy,  learned  to  look  wist- 
fully round  for  Jane  who  showed  him  the  pictures 
so  gently  and  kindly. 

All  of  those  who  found  it  so  easy  to  pour  their 
pleasures  and  their  trials  into  Jane's  ear  never 
thought  of  asking  any  reciprocal  confidences  from 
her.  Their  pleasure  was  in  recounting  and  dwell- 
ing upon  their  own  triumphs,  and  trotting  them- 
selves out  as  heroines  and  heroes  before  such  a 
ready  listener.  The  invalid  boy,  indeed,  did  look 
anxiously  at  times  to  see  if  Jane  were  tired  of  sit- 
ting by  him,  and  would  hope  that  he  was  not 
keeping  her  from  anything  more  pleasant.  And 


142  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Christine  had, .  at  first,  wanted  to  get  at  the 
romance  of  Jane's  life  ;  for  she  was  wondering  very 
much  whether  she  was  perhaps  broken-hearted 
(how  delightfully  interesting  that  would  be,  if  it 
were  so ! )  at  the  conduct  of  Jeffrey  Fleming. 
She  had  heard  they  were  engaged ;  and  now  he 
was  spending  the  winter  in  Hartford,  and  Jane 
never  had  any  letters  from  there,  she  was  sure. 
But  she  never  got  any  confidences  from  Jane  on 
the  subject.  The  latter  was  one  of  those  who  not 
only  could  keep  a  secret,  but  always  gave  the  air 
of  having  no  secret  to  keep.  And  all  this  was 
done  by  merely  quietly  going  on  as  Jane  Burgess, 
just  as  she  did  in  Greyford.  Only,  to  Sophy's 
astonishment,  Jane  was  greatly  admired  in  society. 
That  is  a  thing  nobody  can  set  down  any  law  for ; 
even  Mr.  Buckle  couldn't.  Sophy  thought  it  was 
because  Jane  took  to  crimping  her  hair ;  perhaps  it 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER,    143 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

TANE  is  by  no  means  the  beauty  of  this  story. 
**  It  has,  perhaps,  been  sufficiently  explained  that 
Rachel  Holley  is.  For  Rachel  always  looked  like 
a  beauty,  wherever  you  put  her.  Whether  it  was 
her  grace,  the  pose  of  her  classical  head,  or  the 
glitter  of  her  golden  hair,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
say.  But,  however  you  took  her,  she  had  a  way 
of  making  a  frame  about  herself,  and  turning  into 
a  real  picture,  whether  it  was  when  she  stood  in 
the  parlor  doorway  to  bid  you  good-by,  or  if  she 
were  kneeling  at  Mrs.  Worboise's  feet  to  put 
on  that  lady's  "Arctics,"  to  go  to  an  evening 
meeting. 

But  Jane  was  always  composed,  equal  to  the 
occasion,  and  had  the  grand  fund  of  reserve  on 
hand  that  always  is  impressive. 

There  was  one  person  who  laid  a  special  claim 
to  Jane's  sympathy,  and  it  was  acknowledged  by 
all  the  Bardies  family.  This  was  Mark  Hinsdale. 
He  had  been  received  there  kindly,  and  soon 
became  one  of  the  many  expected  guests  who  were 
allowed  to  drop  in  at  any  time.  There  was  a  seat 


144  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

for  him  at  the  dinner-table,  plans  for  him  for  the 
evening's  concert,  theatre,  or  party,  whatever  it 
might  be. 

Of  course,  Mark  also  had  to  consult  and  confide 
with  Jane.  Every  new  plan  which  took  form-,  as 
he  sat  in  the  library  waiting  of  a  rainy  day  for  any- 
body to  come  and  ask  for  a  "  sermon-book,"  or  for 
"  another  book,"  would  be  dashed  down  on  paper, 
to  be  sent  to  her.  With  his  vivid  imagination, 
these  plans  instantly  assumed  their  full  proportions ; 
and,  as  he  wrote,  the  detail  wrought  itself  out,  even 
to  refinement.  This  would  all  be  posted  to  Jane, 
and  the  next  time  Mark  called  he  would  expect 
her  judgment  on  the  whole.  It  was  sometimes  a 
play,  sometimes  a  novel ;  always  it  was  to  be  very 
successful  when  it  had  found  a  publisher,  and 
always  Jane  was  expected,  from  having  read-  the 
brief,  to  retain  a  complete  knowledge  of  each  char- 
acter, and  of  all  the  names.  Here,  for  instance,  is 
the  plan  of  "  Bertie  Gwynne." 

LIBRARY,  Monday  Morning. 

DEAR  JANE,  —  I  have  had  a  most  interesting  talk  with 
an  army  officer,  who  has  been  for  three  years  surveying  oil 
the  Plains.  He  has  shot  buffalo,  and,  I  dare  say,  scalped 
Indians,  and  knows  every  thing.  He  knows  all  our  east- 
ern wilderness  just  as  well.  What  he  says  confirms  my 
plan  for  "  Bertie  Gwynne."  Just  look  at  this  table  of 
contents. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    145 

The  detail  of  the  book  is  so  extensive,  that  I  cannot  give 
you  the  plot,  but  you  can  read  this. 

BERTIE   GWYNNE. 
Book  1.  ON  BOARD  THE  SERINGA. 

1.  Waiting. 

2.  The  Captain's  Story. 

3.  Ended  and  Begun. 

4.  Mamelita. 

5.  In  the  Mexican  Inn. 

6.  Captain  Hathaway  in  Command. 

7.  The  Wreck  of  the  Seringa. 

Book  2.  SOUTH-WEST  AND  NORTH-WEST. 

1.  In  the  Indian  Country. 

2.  The  Old  Patriarch. 

3.  Escape. 

4.  Norah  Burke's  Suitor. 

5.  The  Signing  of  the  Deed. 

6.  Father  and  Son. 

7.  Charley  Phinney's  Departure. 

Book  3.  LITTLE  CAPTAIN. 

1.  History  of  the  Bucker  Family. 

2.  Little  Captain's  Education. 

3.  Eden  in  New  England. 

4.  The  Mail  comes  in. 

5.  The  Mail  goes  out. 

Book  4.    SlLVERSPURS. 

1.  The  Phinney  Corporations. 

2.  Conchita  and  Panchita. 

3.  An  Unexpected  Arrival. 
7  J 


146  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

4.  The  Ball  and  its  Results. 

5.  Silverspurs  to  the  Rescue  ! 

6.  Through  the  Desert 

7.  The  Waterspout. 

8.  The  Story  of  Silverspurs. 

9.  News  from  Home. 

Book  5.  RISEN  FROM  THE  DEAD. 

1.  The  New  Home. 

2.  In  the  Old  Churchyard. 

3.  Rest. 

I  think  that  if  I  am  ever  to  do  any  thing  good,  it  will  be 
in  this  story,  which  will  attempt  to  trace  the  growth  of  a 
soul  with  only  Nature  to  come  in  contact  with  it ;  which 
will  be  full  of  the  life  and  adventure  of  sea  and  land,  of 
North  Atlantic  and  South  Pacific  shores ;  which  will  be 
exciting,  yet  in  no  way  offensively  sensational. 

This  is  the  story  I  told  you  of  at  the  theatre,  —  a  story 
which  you  declared  was  certainly  not  immoral,  though  it 
might  not  be  moral.  It  has  grown  to  artistic  completion, 
and  unfolded  now  something  like  a  moral,  —  a  relation  of 
heroic  self-sacrifice. 

In  just  the  same  freedom,  Mark  would  have 
his  budget  of  sorrows  to  bring  to  Jane.  Over 
and  over  again  he  talked  with  her  about  Rachel 
Holley. 

"  It  is  something  I  can't  stand,  to  think  of  Rachel 
spending  the  winter  in  a  second,  no,  fifteenth-rate 
boarding-house  in  New  York,  when  we  might  just 
as  well  have  been  married,  and  be  living  comfor- 
tably here  in  Boston." 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    147 

Now,  Jane  knew  that  Mr.  Holley  had  nothing 
in  particular  to  give  his  daughter  if  she  should  be 
married ;  and  she,  privately,  did  not  exactly  see 
how  Rachel  and  Mark  were  going  to  live  so  very 
comfortably  on  his  little  salary  as  assistant  li- 
brarian ;  especially  as  Mark,  when  he  said  these 
words,  would  look  round  approvingly  upon  all  the 
Bardies  luxury  about  them,  as  though  he  and 
Rachel  had  only  to  step  into  just  such  a  home. 

Mark  was  an  unpractical  being ;  he  had  lived  in 
his  books  all  his  life.  His  gleam  of  Rachel  was 
all  that  had  ever  waked  him  out  of  his  dreamy 
reading.  As  he  sat  in  a  comfortable  chair  in  the 
Bardies  back  parlor,  he  thought  how  delightful  it 
would  be  to  be  living  with  Rachel  in  a  home  of 
his  own,  much  like  this,  only  he  should  turn  the 
back  parlor  into  a  library ;  and  —  and  —  it  was 
very  agreeable  to  explain  it  all  to  the  listening 
Jane. 

Jane  defended  Rachel,  and  gradually .  brought 
Mark  to  acknowledge  that  perhaps  she  was  right 
in  not  being  in  such  a  hurry  to  be  married.  Then, 
afterwards,  he  came  to  be  glad  that  Rachel  was  in 
New  York,  on  Horace's  account ;  for  the  poor 
fellow  must  be  sadly  cut  up  at  Nettie's  treatment 
of  him.  Indeed,  Mark  in  a  short  time  began  to 
be  consoled,  and  the  stir  and  bustle  of  the  Bardies 
family  interested  him,  and  woke  him  up  from  his 


148  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

dreamy  life.  He  brought  them  all  the  new  books : 
these  they  could  look  at,  if  they  had  not  time  for 
more,  and  it  was  very  convenient  to  have  him  to 
tell  what  there  was  in  the  books,  when  they  didn't 
read  them. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  that,  for  all  these  con- 
fessions, Jane  had  any  private  chapel  or  oratory 
set  apart ;  there  was  no  privacy  in  the  Bardies 
family.  The  two  drawing-rooms  opened  upon 
each  other  with  wide  folding  doors.  In  the  back 
room,  Jane  and  Christine  took  their  French  lessons 
three  mornings  in  the  week.  But  aunts  and 
uncles  poured  in  upon  the  lesson  all  the  same. 
The  sisters  liked  the  chance  to  come  in  and  talk 
a  little  French  with  M.  Pinaud.  Aunt  Maria, 
of  course,  always  happened  in,  just  as  they  were 
looking  for  a  little  quiet,  and  always  it  was  neces- 
sary to  explain  to  her  what  was  going  on. 

"Oh,  a  French  lesson!  I  hate  the  French," 
was  the  regular  answer,  which  it  was  hoped 
M.  Pinaud  would  not  understand,  though  it 
was  given  in  so  loud  a  voice  he  could  not  but 
hear. 

Just  in  the  height  of  the  m$lee,  the  six  children 
would  come  down,  on  their  way  out  for  their  noon 
walk ;  and  the  stair\vay  opening  between  the 
rooms,  it  gave  an  admirable  chance  to  stop  them, 
and  have  a  great  time  with  them.  Hetty's  new 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          149 

suit  had  to  be  admired,  and  Johnny's  leggings, 
and  Carl's  new  hobby-horse,  that  his  father 
brought  from  New  York;  and  they  each  had  ;i 
favorite  aunt,  who  pounced  upon  her  especial  pet ; 
and  all  the  children  had  to  learn  to  say  "  Bon 
jour "  to  M.  Pinaud.  The  little  infantry  proces- 
sion swept  off,  at  last ;  some  of  the  aunts  with  it. 
But,  by  this  time,  there  was  luncheon,  and  every- 
body had  to  go  down  to  that ;  and  afterwards 
came  callers,  or  calls  to  be  made  till  dinner,  and 
in  the  evening  a  rush  always.  When  there  was 
no  French  lesson,  there  was  shopping.  For  after- 
noons, again,  there  were  the  matinees,  afternoon 
concerts,  or  drives. 

Yet  in  such  a  rush,  the  moments  stolen  for  con- 
fidence are  only  the  more  sweet.  If  one  has  the 
whole  day  for  conversation,  it  gets  a  little  diluted 
and  weak.  But,  if  you  must  concentrate  all  you 
want  to  say  into  the  favored  moment,  you  natu- 
rally make  it  concise,  and  to  the  point.  That  is, 
a  long  cultivation  teaches  you  to  do  so.  Often, 
after  all,  you  bring  out  only  the  most  unnecessary 
and  vapid  part  of  what  you  have  to  say,  just  as  so 
many  people  take  up  half  their  letters  in  explain- 
ing how  they  have  not  written  before,  a  fact  al- 
ready painfully  evident. 

"  Jeanie,  you  must  sit  by  me  to-night,  at  the 
play,"  Christine  would  whisper  to  Jane.  "  I  have 


150  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

got  such  a  story  to  tell  you !  "  And  the  moment 
of  confidence  had  to  be  fought  for ;  it  never  came 
of  itself. 

One  day,  when  noon  at  the  Bardies  house  was 
especially  uproarious,  Mark  came  to  Jane's  side  to 
try  to  say  something  to  her.  The  children  were 
all  on  their  way  out  for  their  walk.  Johnny  was 
shrieking  with  delight  on  the  back  of  the  bache- 
lor uncle,  who  was  trotting  him  up  and  down 
the  length  of  the  two  rooms.  Sophy  was  telling 
the  price  of  the  feather  in  Retty's  hat  to  two  of 
her  sisters-in-law,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  room, 
to  whom  she  had  to  scream  out  the  valuable  in- 
formation. Aunt  Maria  was  explaining  to  the 
.pompany  in  general  her  views  upon  the  French 
war.  She  thought  the  Communists  had  better 
have  been  left  to  kill  each  other,  and  then,  when 
there  was  not  a  Frenchman  to  be  seen,  the  English 
could  take  Paris :  which  she  wondered  they  didn't 
do,  after  Waterloo. 

M.  Pinaud  was  just  taking  his  leave,  and  Chris- 
tine was  attempting  to  drown  her  Aunt  Maria's 
voice  in  a  flood  of  French ;  but  she  was  not  very 
ready  in  that  language,  and  ended  by  going  off 
in  a  list  of  the  numerals,  which  she  could  say 
easily.  It  did  not  make  much  difference  what  she 
said,  in.the  hubbub ;  and  the  French  teacher  was 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    151 

only  too  glad  to  get  off,  without  crushing  Sallie's 
wax  doll  that  lay  in  the  stairway. 

"  I  should  like  to  walk  with  you  to  the  opera, 
Jane,  to-night.  I  have  something  to  tell  you," 
was  all  Mark  found  a  chance  to  say. 


152  SIX  OF  ONE  BT 


CHAPTER   XV. 

\\  7HEN  evening  came,  there  was  some  talk  of 
Jane's  going  in  the  carriage  with  old  Mrs. 
Bardies ;  but  she  stoutly  resisted,  and  was  allowed 
to  set  off,  taking  Mark's  arm.  A  boy,  one  of  Ned 
Bardles's  younger  brothers,  hitched  on  to  them  for 
part  of  the  way,  but  happily  found  their  conversa- 
tion dull,  and  they  had  a  few  moments  to  each 
other.  The  information  Mark  wanted  to  give 
Jane  was  something  he  had  learned  of  Jeffrey 
Fleming.  That  constant  young  man  had  never 
written  to  Jane  any  thing  about  his  long  illness. 
Nor  had  Nettie  written  to  tell  her  of  it.  Jane 
had  heard  not  a  word  from  him  for  many  weeks. 
Some  one  had  told  Mark  that  Jeffrey  had  been 
dangerously  ill,  and  Mark  directly  wrote  to  Hart- 
ford to  inquire  about  it.  A  letter  came  from  Jef- 
frey himself,  to  say  that  it  was  all  true ;  but  he 
was  well  again,  and  now  "  dead  in  love  with 
Nettie,"  as  he  expressed  it. 

Jeffrey  had  always  been  a  wild  young  fellow, 
never   capable   of    sticking    to    one    thing    long. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    153 

There  had  only  been  one  bit  of  steadfastness  in 
him,  and  that  was  his  affection  for  Jane.  There 
had  always  been  something  in  her  serene  atmos- 
phere, that  had  brought  out  all  his  finer  qualities, 
—  so  everybody  thought.  And  it  was  considered 
one  of  Jane's  saintly  gifts,  that  of  loving  such  a 
harum-scarum,  and  bringing  him  into  respectable 
society. 

How  could  Mark  impart  to  Jane  the  intelligence 
of  Jeffrey's  shameful  desertion  ? 

It  was  Jane  who  helped  him  out.  She,  too,  had 
a  piece  of  intelligence  for  him.  She  had  received 
a  letter  from  Rachel,  telling  about  her  life  in  New 
York,  and  how  much  she  was  depending  upon 
Horace  Vanzandt's  tenderness  and  affection. 

"I  do  believe,  if  he  ever  loved  Nettie,"  said 
Rachel,  "  he  loves  her  no  longer.  And  certainly 
she  is  not  worthy  the  love  of  one  so  whole-souled 
as  he  is,  if  she  could  treat  him  as  she  has  done  !  " 

Jane  thought  she  ought  to  prepare  Mark  for  the 
fact  that  Rachel  was  finding  some  consolation  in 
Horace  in  his  absence;  and,  knowing  that  her 
time  was  short,  she  plunged  directly  into  it.  This 
made  it  amazingly  easy  for  Mark  to  tell  his  part ; 
and  he  was  so  eager  in  abusing  Jeffrey  Fleming,  that 
he  forgot  to  be  as  sorry  as  h.e  ought  about  Rachel. 

It  was  with  Mark's  intelligence  ringing  in  her 
ears  that  Jane  sat  through  the  opera. 


154  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

The  action  of  an  opera  is  often  supposed  to  be 
unnatural  and  absurd;  but  the  writer  of  the 
.libretto  knows  well  the  power  of  the  music  that  is 
to  lift  the  whole  story  into  a  reality.  And,  if  one 
listens  to  the  opera  with  any  great  emotion  on 
one's  mind,  it  is  astonishing  how  its  music  allies 
itself  to  one's  feelings  and  makes  the  stage  carry 
out  the  drama  that  is  going  on  in  the  heart. 

We  almost  believe  that  music  is  a  necessary 
accompaniment  to  all  the  tragedy  or  action  of  pur 
own  lives  ;  and  when  the  orchestra  stops,  and  the 
curtain  falls,  we  come  out  into  the  silence,  or  into 
the  hubbub  that  follows  the  harmony,  with  the 
feeling  that  our  little  play  is  ended  too,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  more. 

Even  when  a  grinding  organ  is  playing  at  the 
corner  of  the  streets,  look  round  and  you  will  see 
how  unconsciously  everybody's  pace  is  set  in  time 
with  the  melody,  - —  old  men,  and  little  girls,  and 
busy  shopping- women,  —  and  some  of  them  go 
moving  on  with  an  earnest,  heroic  look,  as  though 
the  music  of  the  spheres  were  suddenly  sounding 
up  through  the  discordant  noise  of  the  street. 

The  drama  of  Jane's  life  was  coursing  through 
her  mind,  all  the  time  she  was  listening  to  the 
three  acts  of  the  opera.  Between  the  parts,  Chris- 
tine on  one  side  would  bring  in  a  little  chippering 
about  somebody's  bonnet ;  but  on  the  other  side 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          155 

Mark  was  sitting  silent,  having  fallen  back  into 
one  of  his  moods. 

The  opera  was  "  II  Trovatore."  Jane  was  go- 
ing over  some  of  her  old  times  with  Jeffrey,  one 
evening,  when  she  had  saved  him  from  a  terrible 
temptation,  when  he  had  staid  by  her,  and  gave 
her  all  the  history  of  his  life,  telling  her  scenes 
that  had  been  then  a  black  contrast  to  her  own 
peaceful  life,  that  had  made  her  shudder,  and  were 
recalled  again  in  the  clangor  of  the  chorus  on  the 
stage,  by  the  great  tumult  of  the  orchestra. 

Again  the  scene  changed,  and  she  thought  of 
him  on  his  sick-bed,  and  perhaps  wanting  her 
again.  She  had  discouraged  Jeffrey's  writing"  to 
her,  partly  because  he  wrote  such  poor  letters,  and 
partly  because,  as  she  told  him,  he  ought  to  be 
devoting  himself  to  his  business  ;  and,  if  he  were 
writing  every  day  to  her,  it  would  take  out  a 
great  piece  of  his  time.  And  she  did  not  think 
much  of  now-and-then  letters,  when  one  has  every 
thing  to  tell,  and  tells  nothing.  Besides,  Jane 
had  a  difficulty  in  trusting  her  own  thoughts  even 
to  paper.  It  frightened  her,  the  very  idea  of  see- 
ing her  own  heart  laid  down  in  black  and  white 
before  her  eyes.  For  this  reason  Jane  had  always 
written  very  cold,  unsatisfactory  letters. 

And  now  on  the  stage  there  was  the  scene  of  a 
high  tower  at  one  side.  Behind  it  was  the  tenor, 


156  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

singing  with  all  his  might  off  the  stage,  supposed 
to  be  in  the  uppermost  story  of  the  tower. 

What  a  voice  he  had  !  How  rich,  how  tender, 
how  moving !  He  was  reproaching  the  lady  of  his 
love  for  leaving  him,  for  deserting  him  to  marry 
another.  But  there  she  was  below,  singing  with 
all  her  voice,  out  of  her  heart,  too,  trying  to  reach 
way  up  to  him  from  the  foot  of  the  tower,  telling 
him  how  she  loved  him,  and  how  she  wanted  to 
come  to  him,  and  to  save  his  life.  And  all  the 
time  from  the  distance  came  the  Miserere,  the 
chanting  of  some  quiet  nuns  singing  in  this  heav- 
enly way  out  of  the  peace  of  their  cells,  and  send- 
ing their  harmony  into  the  discords  of  the  world. 
It  was  a  chorus  with  many  monotones,  however : 
what  sympathy  did  it  have  with  two  hearts  storm- 
ing and  breaking  outside  ? 

Well,  all  this,  to  Jane,  became  her  own  drama. 

And  have  we  not  all  of  us  acted  and  lived  it 
through  in  all  our  lives  ?  We  call  the  plot  of  the 
opera  absurd  and  unnatural  and  ridiculous.  Oh, 
yes  !  so  it  all  is,  —  the  bridegroom  with  his  white 
satin  breeches,  loose  at  the  knee,  lace-trimmed ; 
the  stout  basso,  brawling  his  woes.  But  have  we 
not  seen  the  being 'we  loved  the  most,  imprisoned 
in  some  tower,  and  we  at  the  foot  of  it,  outside, 
grasping  the  cold  stones,  trying  to  reach  to  him  ? 
It  is  sickness,  sin,  of  ours  or  his,  some  impenetra- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    157 

bility,  that  shuts  him  from  us.  We  hear  his 
appealing  voice,  but  we  cannot  come  to  him  ;  and 
not  far  away  there  is  going  on  the  sound  of  the 
voices  of  the  peaceful,  of  those  who  are  feeling  no 
longer  the  passions  of  the  world,  and  they  chant 
of  death  and  heaven  and  pity.  But  it  cannot  quiet- 
us ;  for  it  is  not  only  our  own  sorrow,  but  the 
agony  of  another,  that  is  calling  to  us  ;  and  we  try 
to  make  the  voice  of  our  heart  reach  him  with  our 
sympathy,  though  it  must  be  in  discord  with  the 
chant.  Jane  seemed  to  see  Jeffrey  on  his  sick-bed, 
stretching  out  his  arms  to  her,  appealing  to  her. 

"  Non  ti  scordar  di  me"  sang  out  the  opera- 
singer. 

"  What,  I,  separate  my  heart  from  yours ! ?'  said 
Jane's  thoughts. 

"  Could  not  I  go  to  you?  " 

And  then  came  another  pause  between  the  parts 
of  the  opera,  and  everybody  fell  to  saying  a  few 
things.  Sophy  had  tears  in  her  eyes,  but  she  only 
took  out  her  handkerchief  to  show  its  embroidery 
to  her  neighbor. 

Now,  in  all  this,  Jane  had  been  thinking  not 
merely  of  Jeffrey's  severe  illness,  and  that  she  had 
not  been  there  to  care  for  him  ;  but  the  sting  had 
been,  that  another  woman  had  filled  what  was  her 
province.  Jane  loved  Nettie,  as  all  these  three 
girls  loved  each  other.  But  Jane  had  been  Jef- 


158  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

frey's  strong  friend  and  supporter.  There  had 
been  periods  in  his  life  when  she  had  saved  him 
from  himself.  She  felt,  then,  a  certain  right  to  be 
every  thing  to  him,  —  a  jealousy  of  the  influence 
of  another. 

And  Nettie  she  could  not  believe  was  the  right 
woman  for  Jeffrey ;  they  were  too  much  alike,  both 
fascinating  from  their  very  waywardness.  Mark 
had  somehow  let  out  in  his  story  that  Nettie  had 
changed,  had  improved. 

But  who  wanted  Nettie  to  improve,  or  change  ? 
Was  not  she  very  well  as  she  was  ?  What  prosaic, 
Yankee-calculating  kind  of  books  are  those  that 
are  so  stern  on  the  butterflies !  Would  we  indeed 
prefer  them  all  to  stay  as  caterpillars,  and  be 
grubbing  round  all  the  time  over  the  foliage  ?  And 
if  the  butterfly  finds  his  food  in  every  flower-cup, 
why  need  he  build  little  larders,  like  ants  and  bees  ? 

Jane  did  not  say  all  this.  The  Gypsy  was  sing- 
ing her  sleepy  song,  and  Jane  only  felt  that  it  was 
all  wrong,  and  that  it  was  her  fault.  If  she  had 
not  been  so  stiff  about  Jeffrey's  writing,  it  would 
have  been  different.  She  would  have  known  of  his 
illness,  from  his  not  writing ;  she  would  have  gone 
to  him. 

Christine  arranged  that  Mr.  Archer  should  walk 
home  with  Jane,  and  Mark  with  herself ;  so  Jane 
had  no  more  talk  with  him  that  night. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          159 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

A  FTERWARDS  there  came  fresh  opportuni- 
ties  of  Jane's  having  conversation  with  Mark 
alone. 

Her  charitable  feelings  had  been  much  exercised 
since  she  had  been  in  Boston.  She  could  not  re- 
sist giving  an  answer  to  the  appeals  of  "  only  one 
cent "  from  the  forlorn  boys  and  girls  on  Beacon 
Street.  In  the  first  days  of  her  visit,  Ned  had 
caught  her  listening  to  the  story  of  a  ragged 
woman  on  the  door-steps.  He  had  then  lectured 
her  on  the  subject  of  the  utter  uselessness,  nay, 
wickedness,  of  giving  money  in  such  cases ;  and  he 
presented  Jane  with  a  packet  of  tickets  of  the 
Provident  Association,  and  its  little  directory  of 
names  to  whom  to  apply.  Jane  made  liberal  use 
of  these. 

But  sometimes  she  could  not  resist  answering 
such  an  appeal  herself;  and  she  had  accumulated 
a  little  set  of  poor  places  to  be  visited,  that  she 
attended  to  as  carefully  as  to  any  of  her  list 
of  callers.  But  these  places  were  far  away  in 


160  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

the  narrow,  perplexing,  winding  streets,  and  she 
needed  Mark  as  guide.  Two  or  three  times  a 
week,  then,  they  set  off  together  on  these  journeys 
of  discovery. 

Such  an  expedition  was  not  particularly  favora- 
ble to  talking.  All  the  first  part  of  the  way  they 
were  interrupted  by  meeting  acquaintances ;  then 
they  reached  the  streets,  where  the  sidewalks  were 
.  very  narrow,  —  there  was  building  going  on,  here 
and  there,  and  Mark  had  to  shoot  off  in  one  direc- 
tion, and  Jane  in  another.  But  Mark  had  a  happy 
faculty  of  not  being  disturbed  by  these  outside  in- 
terruptions, and  would  hold  on  to  his  sentence  and 
his  idea,  all  through  the  intricacies  .of  street-cross- 
ings, crowds  and  jostlings. 

In  one  of  their  wanderings,  one  day,  far  down 
at  the  "North"  End,"  they  stumbled  upon  what 
looked  like  a  bee-hive,  or  what  Mark  called  a 
human  ant-heap.  For  little  ants  of  children  were 
running  in  and  out  of  a  little  shop  from  which  each 
came  with  a  ginger-cake  in  its  mouth. 

"  Suppose  we  try  our  chance,"  said  Mark  to 
Jane  ;  "  for  our  long  walk  makes  me  feel  as  if  I 
should  like  a  ginger-cake." 

Jane  agreed ;  and  they  went  into  a  little  low 
shop,  the  lower  story  of  a  house  that  formed  one 
of  a  most  uninteresting  looking  block  of  houses. 

But  when  they  were  inside,  they  found  it  was 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          161 

the  establishment  of  Luclarion  Grapp,  of  which 
Jane  had  heard.  This  remarkable  woman  had  set 
up  a  little  shop  in  the  most  hopeless  and  poorest 
part  of  the  town,  for  the  very  purpose  of  doing 
something  for  the  forlorn  children  that  seemed  to 
swarm  about  there.  She  had  succeeded,  from 
washing  the  face  of  one  child,  in  purifying  the 
families  of  many  ;  and  she  gladly  showed  Jane  and 
Mark  up  and  down  through  the  rooms  of  her  little 
home. 

"  That 's  a  good  beginning,"  said  Mark,  after 
they  had  left. 

"  It  shows  what  one  woman  can  do,"  said  Jane. 

"  Then  how  much  two  people  could  do,"  said 
Mark,  "  if  they  set  themselves  together !  But, 
Jane,  do  you  know  the  sight  of  all  such  destitution 
as  we  have  been  seeing  here  stirs  up  all  my  theo- 
ries ?  I  begin  to  wonder  what  right  we  have  to 
any  property  at  all,  when  these  have  barely  their 
daily  bread.  Not  that  I  am  largely  endowed  with 
worldly  goods  ;  but  I  take  my  little  luxuries,  and  I 
am,  in  my  way,  working  for  an  independence,  for  a 
competency,  that  I  have  hoped  to  reach  some 
time." 

Jane  was  plunging  across  the  street  in  front  of 
an  omnibus,  and  her  answer  was  lost. 

"  Now,  I  have  half  a  mind,"  said  Mark,  "  to 
start  a  new  order  of  mendicant  friars,  throw  what 


162  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

little  goods  I  have  into  the  general  fund,  and  set 
out  begging  my  daily  bread." 

"  If  you  came  across  brother  Bardies,"  said  Jane, 
for  now  they  had  happened  to  reach  a  broad  side- 
walk, and  firm  footing,  where  she  could  talk  more 
freely,  "  he  would  give  you  a  ticket  to  the  Provi- 
dent Association." 

"That's  the  trouble  nowadays,"  said  Mark; 
"  one  is  always  coming  flat  up  against  an  institu- 
tion. If  it  were  only  like  the  old  days,  when  there 
was  a  wide  porch  to  the  houses  of  the  great,  where 
the  poor  could  find  their  rest,  and  be  sure  that 
a  loaf  of  bread  would  be  brought  to  them  "  — 

"But  stop  a  minute,  Mark,"  said  Jane  ;  " some- 
body must  then  be  rich  enough  to  build  up  your 
castle  and  its  wide  porch,  and  somebody  has  got  to 
earn  and  make  your  bread.  Now,  I  should  be  a 
little  ashamed  to  go  round  and  beg  for  bread  I  had 
not  earned.  But  perhaps  you  mean  to  preach  so 
grandly  that  you  will  be  worthy  of  it." 

"  Oh,  no !  "  said  Mark,  in  a  discouraged  tone. 
"  I  am  no  preacher ;  but  seriously,  Jane,  is  it  the 
highest  life  among  the  rich,  or  among  the  poor? 
or,  rather,  won't  you  tell  me  what  do  you  think 
living  —  Avhat  do  you  think  life  is?  " 

They  had  reached  a  crowded  place,  where  all 
the  horse-cars  and  all  the  omnibuses  seemed  to 
have  met  in  one  grand  jumble,  with  news-boys, 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.    163 

apple-women,  men  selling  boot-lacings,  men  with 
valises,  women  with  huge  travelling-bags,  all  flung 
together  in  a  grand  pell-mell.  It  was  a  muddy 
day,  and  sidewalks  and  street  were  imbedded  in  a 
black  paste.  Jane  had  been  grasping  her  dress, 
and  dropping  her  sunshade  every  three  steps.  She 
succeeded  in  answering  — 

"  I  think  it  is  a  little  mixed  now." 

"I  agree  with  you,"  said  Mark,  laughing:  "it 
is  for  us  two  to  pick  our  course  through  it,  to- 
gether, cleanly,  if  we  can.  What  do  you  say  to 
taking  this  blue-green  horse-car?" 

Jane  gladly  flung  herself  into  it;  and  Mark, 
seating  himself  by  her  side,  went  on  with  his  spec- 
ulations. These  were  somewhat  interrupted,  for 
here  they  had  reached  the  meridian  of  acquaint- 
ances who  were  to  be  greeted  in  the  car.  Still 
Mark  held  manfully  to  his  thread. 

When  Jane  had  a  little  time  to  consider  it  all 
by  herself,  she  began  to  tremble  a  little  at  her 
responsibilities  with  Mark.  He  was  depending 
upon  her,  she  feared,  too  much. 

In  the  old  days  she  used  to  think  that  the 
kaleidoscope  of  fate  ought  to  have  jostled  Mark 
and  Nettie  side  by  side.  Nettie  was  precisely  the 
gay,  lively  companion  that  he  needed  to  stir  him 
from  his  dreams,  and  keep  him  active  in  life. 
Now  the  kaleidoscope  had  turned,  and  there  was 


164  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

a  fresh  crystallization  in  their  little  circle.  Was 
this  to  be  the  permanent  one  ?  She  began  to 
think  so.  There  was  one  thing  she  possessed,  that 
she  would  gladly  give  Mark ;  and  that  was  her 
fortune.  Yes,  how  pleasant  it  would  be  to  make 
for  him  a  comfortable  home,  with  its  luxurious 
library,  and  to  have  every  thing  easy  and  happy 
for  him.  She  could  do  it ;  and  in  return  he  was 
just  the  person  to  make  home-life  charming,  al- 
ways even  in  temper,  with  a  steady  flow  of  happy 
thought  and  originality  that  made  talk  with  him 
delightful.  She  knew  that  Mark  thought  so  little 
of  her  fortune,  that  the  fact  that  he  was  poor  and 
she  rich  would  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  marry- 
ing her,  because  it  would  not  occur  to  him.  He 
would  marry  her  for  love,  so  conscious  of  her  own 
worth  that  he  would  forget  in  his  unworldliness 
that  she  had  also  the  commonplace  charms  of 
money.  This  simplicity  touched  Jane ;  and  she 
felt  that  she  would  like  to  keep  him  in  this  dream 
all  his  life.  There  were,  so  many  about  her,  who 
looked  at  her  only  as  an  heiress,  that  it  was  re- 
freshing to  know  how  utterly  Mark  was  uncon- 
scious of  it. 

She  was  a  little  startled  one  day,  when  Mark 
came  in  suddenly,  and  begged  to  speak  with  her. 
She  drew  back  from  the  accustomed  throng  in 
the  parlors,  into  a  little  anteroom  that  separated 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE   OTHER.          165 

them  from  the  billiard-room  in  the  wing.  This 
was  so  called  because  there  was  a  billiard-table 
there,  where  all  the  members  of  the  family  were 
fond  of  playing.  But  it  communicated  by  some 
stairs  with  the  lower  story,  and'  Sophy  was  apt  to 
be  holding  her  domestic  household  councils  here 
with  her  servants.  So  it  was  by  no  means  a  se- 
cluded room,  and  the  little  anteroom  that  led  to 
it  was  quite  a  thoroughfare. 

It  was  pretty  much  filled  up,  too,  by  a  large 
Daphne  plant  in  flower,  and  a  marble  head  of 
Psyche  on  a  pedestal.  Mark  and  Jane  managed 
to  stand  there  a  few  minutes. 

44  Jane,  I  have  come  to  tell  you,"  said  Mark, 
44  that  I  have  just  received  an  appointment  as  head 
librarian  to  the  Johnsonian  Library  in  Chicago, 
with  a  real  substantial  salary ;  only  I  must  go 
there  directly." 

Sophy  rushed  through  from  the  billiard-room. 

"Where  is  Ned?  Has  he  got  out?  I  must 
speak  to  him." 

44  To  Chicago  ! "  said  Jane,  when  she  had  an- 
swered Sophy :  "  how  singular  !  For  I  was  going 
to  tell  you  of  our  new  plans.  Ned's  brother 
wants  him  to  come  out  to  Chicago,  for  this  next 
winter,  to  oversee  some  business ;  and  Sophy  and 
I,  all  of  us,  are  to  go  next  fall.  At  least,  it  is 
settled  I  am  to  go  if  I  like.  Ned  was  talking  it 


166  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

/over  this  morning  at  breakfast ;  and  I,  indeed, 
thought  I  would  consult  you  on  my  going." 

Jane's  long  sentence  had  only  been  brought 
out  with  interruptions.  Carl,  the  oldest  boy, 
had  dashed  through  to  the  billiard-room  to  find 
his  mother,  and  back  again,  not  successful  in  his 
search.  Retty  had  appeared  looking  for  Cecil. 
The  nurse  came  rushing  after  Retty.  Cecil  had 
made  his  way  downstairs,  but  Retty  was  not  to 
be  allowed  to  follow  him ;  the  nurse  brought 
Retty  back  triumphantly  in  her  arms,  screaming 
at  the  top  of  his  lungs.  He  had  to  be  cosseted  by 
his  aunt,  and  then  his  mother  reappeared  on  the 
scene  to  see  what  was  the  matter.  Then  she 
wanted  to  consult  Jane  about  making  Mr.  Jack 
Bardies  stay  to  dinner,  but  she  flew  off  again  at 
a  scream  from  Cecil.  Aunt  Maria  was  shouting 
from  the  front  room,  wondering  where  Jane  was. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  said  Mark,  when  he 
had  a  chance  to  speak,  "  you  will  come  to  Chicago. 
Only  let  me  get  there  first  and  establish  myself, 
and  then  may  I  write  and  ask  you  "  — 

Christine  here  plunged  in. 

"  O  Jane,  Jane !  save  me  from  that  detestable 
Mr.  Archer.  He  is  coming  up  the  stairs.  Do 
let  me  have  a  cosey  little  chat  with  you  and 
Mark"- 

Mark  suppressed  some  strong  language,  unusual 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          167 

to  him,  and  left.  He  came  in  the  evening  to  say 
good-by,  but  had  only  an  opportunity  of  promis- 
ing to  write  to  Jane. 

The  next  day  was  Valentine's  Day,  and  this 
little  poem  came  to  Jane.  It  was  not  in  Mark's 
writing.  But  could  any  one  except  him  have 
written  it? 

DAY  AND  NIGHT. 

I. 

Though  my  heart  throbs  not  when  I  hear  her  voice, 

Nor  moves  with  every  rustle  of  her  dress, 

Still  do  I  know  her  Avondrous  loveliness, 
And  in  her  rare,  sweet  beauty  I  rejoice. 
The  symbol  of  all  lovely  things  to  me  ; 

A  touch  of  heaven  seems  to  light  her  face. 

She  is  a  creature  of  such  perfect  grace, 
And  more  than  that,  such  perfect  purity, 
The  world  seems  better  for  her  living  in  it. 

To  love  her,  then,  can  any  of  us  dare  1 
Her  heart  a  treasure  is,  —  I  would  not  win  it. 

It  is  enough,  our  breathing  the  same  air. 
I  know,  through  her,  my  life  is  filled  with  light. 
This  is  the  placid  day  :  oh  !  must  there  come  a  night  1 

II. 

To  her  alone  I  can  myself  disclose ; 

She  always  understands  and  comforts  me. 

So  brave,  so  frank,  so  generous  is  she, 
So  true  a  friend,  that  I  forget  my  foes. 
So  beautiful,  with  soft  yet  brilliant  eyes, 

And  tangled  dark  brown  hair,  and  youth's  rich  bloom, 

Where'er  she  moves  is  warmth  and  sweet  perfume. 
And  yet,  o'er  all  this  good,  such  ill  may  rise : 


168  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Though  by  the  future  only  'twill  be  proved, 
Too  well  I  know  what  coming  years  may  bring, 

If,  ever  loving,  she  should  not  be  loved. 
She  will  reach  ruin  through  that  suffering. 

But  now  she  is  all  love  and  life  and  light. 

It  is  the  joyous  day :  I  will  not  think  of  night. 
FEB.  14, 1871. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    169 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

"XTALENTTNE'S  DAY  came  in  Lent  last  year, 
and  soon  after  Easter  the  Bardies  establish- 
ment was  broken  up  for  the  summer  wanderings. 
Jane  went  for  a  few  weeks  to  Greyford,  but  was 
to  spend  the  summer  with  her  sister  Sophy  in 
Newport. 

She  found  that  she  had  just  missed  seeing  Rachel 
Holley  and  Horace,  in  Greyford.  Mr.  Holley  had 
taken  Rachel  away  with  him  "  out  west." 

"  Somehow,  since  his  wife  is  dead,"  said  Miss 
Burgess,  Jane's  aunt,  "  Mr.  Holley  can't  seem  to 
settle  down  to  any  thing  at  home.  He  has  gone 
out  prospecting  a  little.  He  did  talk  about  Denver 
City  and  St.  Paul's ',  but  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he 
settled  down  before  he  got  there.  Mrs.  Holley's 
relations  are  all  in  Chicago,  and  Mrs.  Worboise 
has  moved  out  there,  I  suppose  you  heard." 

Jane  heard,  too,  that  Dr.  Sylva  and  Nettie 
joined  the  Holleys,  just  for  the  journey,  and  no- 
body knew  when  Nettie  would  be  back. 

How  quiet  Greyford  seemed !  Jane  looked  up 
and  down  its  broad  streets,  with  their  huge  elms 


170  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

shading  it  on  either  side  ;  and,  in  the  late  afternoon, 
she  seemed  to  see  the  same  cows  wandering  home 
that  she  used  to  watch  when  she  was  a  child. 
They  ran  wildly  into  Deacon  Spinley's  side  yard, 
just  as  they  used  to,  and  were  chased  out  with  the 
same  contumely,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  same  boy. 

One  day,  while  she  was  with  her  aunt,  she 
opened  a  little  cupboard  that  was  set  into  the  side 
of  the  old-fashioned  chimney  of  the  sitting-room,  to 
put  away  into  it  some  of  the  things  she  was  tired 
of  seeing  on  the  mantle-piece.  She  was  surprised 
to  find  standing  in  front  of  one  of  the  shelves, 
looking  at  her,  a  little  bear  of  carved  wood,  which 
she  had  never  seen  before.  She  took  it  out  to  look 
at  it,  when  Miss  Burgess  exclaimed,  "  There,  Jane, 
I  almost  forgot  to  give  it  to  you.  Horace  Van- 
zandt  left  it  for  you,  to  show  you  he  had  improved 
in  carving  since  the  old  days.  He  put  it  up  on  the 
mantle-shelf ;  but  seeing  it  was  getting  dusty,  I  set 
it  away  in  the  cupboard,  and  clean  forgot  it." 

It  was  in  very  old,  childish  days  that  the  Van- 
zandts  lived  next  door  to  the  Burgesses.  Horace 
had  a  special  gift  at  whittling,  and  used  to  make 
dolls'  chairs  and  tables  for  Jane,  that  she  kept  in 
her  baby-house  as  long  as  they  would  stand.  The 
little  Jane  valued  them,  though  the  legs  were 
rickety ;  and  they  were  the  pride  of  her  estab- 
lishment. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    171 

One  day  when  Horace  was  about  six  years  old, 
he  was  found  crying  on  the  door-step.  Tears  were 
unusual  with  this  ambitious  youth.  Jane  tried  to 
find  out  the  trouble.  He  held  up  a  bit  of  wood  in 
his  hand,  saying,  "  I  tried  to  make  it  a  bear,  and  it 
will  be  a  pig." 

This  was  a  tragic  event  in  childhood,  but  had 
been  the  source  of  an  infinite  number  of  jokes 
afterwards ;  Horace  insisting  that  his  bears,  in 
after  life,  turned  out  nothing  but  pigs. 

"  He  wants  to  show  me  that  he  can  make  a 
bear,"  said  Jane,  as  she  took  it  upstairs  with  her. 
This  was  on  one  of  her  last  days  of  packing,  and 
she  did  the  bear  up  in  tissue-paper,  and  put  it  in 
one  of  the  sacredest  trays  of  her  trunk.  She  had 
a  letter  from  Mark  in  the  afternoon ;  and  when  she 
went  back  to  her  room  she  unpacked  all  her  things, 
took  the  bear  out,  and  set  it  up  on  the  mantle- 
piece. 

"  I  may  as  well  leave  it  with  the  rest  of  my 
things,"  she  said. 

The  next  morning  she  went  away.  She  looked 
round  her  room  before  she  left,  with  her  travelling- 
bag  in  her  hand.  The  little  bear  sat  up  on  his 
hind  legs,  and  looked  at  her.  She  saw  the  little 
bear,  took  it,  and  plunged  it  into  the  top  of  her 
bag. 

Sophy  went  upstairs  with   Jane   to   her  room, 


172  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

after  she  reached  Newport,  and  was  present  when 
Jane  opened  her  bag,  to  take  out  some  of  her 
things.  "  What  a  dear  little  bear ! "  exclaimed 
Sophy,  when  it  appeared.  "  It  is  just  the  thing  to 
set  on  the  top  of  your  little  clock.  I  had  a  plan 
for  a  cuckoo-clock  for  your  room,  but  Ned  thought 
you  would  not  like  the  noise.  And  perhaps  it  is 
best  not  to  have  two  in  the  house.  And  he  found 
this  pretty  little  carved  thing  for  the  mantle-piece. 
And  just  what  it  needs  is  this  little  bear." 

Jane's  summer  passed  on  quietly.  Its  peace 
almost  terrified  her.  It  made  her  think  of  one  of 
those  cloudless  summer  days  that  are  called 
"  weather  breeders,"  and  she  had  a  vague  dread 
of  a  storm  collecting  behind  the  horizon. 

She  had  the  most  charming  letters  from  Mark, 
full  of  tenderness  and  eloquence  and  poetry. 
She  liked  to  read  them  over  and  over.  After  she 
had  been  especially  moved  by  one  of  these  letters, 
she  would  take  away  Horace's  little  bear  from  the 
top  of  the  clock,  and  set  it  aside.  But  Ann,  the 
housemaid,  had  an  unwonted  eye  for  symmetry, 
and  always  found  it  out  and  put  it  back  again. 

"  Of  course  it 's  absurd,"  said  Jane  to  herself, 
"  to  make  any  thing  out  of  such  a  little  thing. 
But  I  wonder  if  Horace  meant  any  thing  more  than 
fun,  and  to  show  me  that  he  had  improved  in  carv- 
ing, Yet  it  keeps  me  thinking  of  him  ;  and  I  can't 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    173 

see  the  right  of  it,  that  all  Mark's  letters  should 
not  keep  him  in  my  mind  so  much  as  the  sight  of 
that  little  thing  makes  Horace  always  present 
to  me ! " 

As  for  Mark,  he  liked  Chicago.  It  would  be 
hard  to  find  a  wide-awake  young  man,  whether  he 
were  poet  like  Mark,  inventor  like  Horace,  or  a  gen- 
eral, driving,  enthusiastic  putter-of-things-through 
like  Jeff,  who  did  not  like  Chicago  in  those  days, 
at  least,  till  he  had  seen  the  folly  of  it.  In  the 
first  place,  Chicago  was,  as  Mark's  old  friend,  Dr. 
Sylva,  was  used  to  say,  a  central  ganglion  of  the 
world's  nervous-system,  —  the  life  of  the  world 
found  its  centres  there  ;  and  then  Humfry,  on  the 
other  side  the  table,  would  laugh,  and  say,  "  He 
means  it  is  a  relay  station  on  the  wires,"  which  was 
substantially  what  the  Doctor  did  mean.  Every- 
body was  in  a  hurry ;  everybody  looked  forward,  and 
was  so  perfectly  sure  of  his  future  that  he  dis- 
counted it  at  whatsver  rate  of  interest.  Mark  did 
not  find  that  a  great  many  people  came  into  the 
Johnsonian  Library ;  but  that  was  all  the  better 
for  the  librarian.  It  gave  him  more  time  to  write 
for  "  The  Lakeside  Monthly,"  in  which  he  was  an 
accepted  and  favorite  contributor.  As  he  walked 
home  at  night,  he  would  stop  and  see  Mr.  Walsh, 
and  look  over  the  last  new  books,  and  in  his  beau- 
tiful book-store,  that  most  luxurious  of  "  loafing- 


174  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

places,"  turn  over  some  of  the  new  English 
newspapers.  Then,  ignoring  the  horse-cars,  he 
would  cross  the  bridge  westward,  often  stopping 
to  study  character  or  race,  as  the  fresh- water  sea- 
men worked  their  boats  or  schooners  through  the 
drawbridges  or  up  and  down  the  crowded  stream. 
Mark  lived  in  nice  rooms  with  some  old  friends 
who  kept  house  well  out  on  the  prairie,  as  he  used 
to  say,  on  the  west  side.  But  he  did  not  dislike 
his  walk,  night  or  morning.  In  the  warmest 
August  evenings  he  came  home  well  contented  with 
himself,  and  declaring,  that  if  you  did  not  walk  fast, 
the  air  was  not  oppressive.  This  meant,  being  in- 
terpreted, that  as  he  walked  he  had  been  blocking 
out  a  new  novel,  or  whipping  into  shape  the  refrac- 
tory rhymes  of  a  new  sonnet  to  Jane.  To  think 
that  that  quiet  girl,  so  well-balanced,  so  little  de- 
monstrative, should  have  got  this  empire  over  our 
bright,  intense  poet,  who  cannot  sleep  to-night  un- 
less to  paper  he  has  confided  what  he  thinks  and 
what  he  knows  !  Ah,  Jane  !  Jane  !  as  he  makes 
"lowly"  do  its  duty  in  rhyming  with  "holy,"  and 
reserves  fit  place  lower  down  in  which  the  line  is 
to  round  off  into  "  melancAo?^,"  are  you  reading 
his  last  sonnet?  or  are  you  looking  at  Horace's 
bear? 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.          175 


CHAPTER    XVHI. 

999  WEST  12-rn  STREET,  Aug.  11,  1810. 

"JV/TY  DEAR  MARK,  — The  Greyford  people 
tell  me  you  are  in  Chicago.  And  to  think 
that  your  old  dream  is  fulfilled,  and  that  you  are 
librarian-iii-chief !  Shall  I  not  make  you  order 
full  sets  of  "  Annales  des  Mines,"  and  "  Royal 
Engineer  Transactions,"  and  every  thing  else  in 
my  line  ?  You  know,  old  fellow,  that  I  am  to 
spend  next  winter  in  Chicago,  and,  if  things  turn 
out  well,  all  my  life.  It  is  one  of  those  hits  which 
fellows  here  call  "  bonus  ictus"  that  being  supposed 
to  be  the  Latin  for  "  a  good  lick." 

Do  you  know  any  thing  about  cut-offs  ?  .Very 
likely  you  do  not ;  but  on  the  proper  management 
and  adjustment  of  cut-offs  depends  the  .very  price 
of  the  coal  that  you  will  burn  next  winter  to  warm 
your  Alexandrian  library,  or  whatever  its  name 
may  be.  It  is  estimated  that  the  truly  successful 
cut-offs  now  in  use  diminish  the  quantity  of  fuel 
needed  in  the  steam-engines  which  employ  them 
by  twenty-three,  twenty-seven,  and  in  some  cases 


176  BIX  OF  ONE  BY 

thirty-five,  and  even  thirty-six  and  two-thirds  per 
cent.  So  you  see  a  cut-off,  if  it  is  really  good,  is 
a  virtual  addition  of  such  an  amount  as  those 
figures  represent  to  the  coal-product  of  the  coun- 
try. 

Well,  we  have  stumbled  on  an  old  fellow  — 
queer  fellow  too ;  regular  down-east  Yankee  — who 
has  a  most  amazing  and  ingenious  invention  for  a 
new  cut-off.  If  you  were  here  I  could  explain  it 
to  you  in  two  minutes ;  but  without  a  working 
model  you  would  hardly  understand  it.  I  have 
just  sent  off  to  London,  where  we  are  to  get  an 
English  patent,  some  capital  drawings  of  it  by 
Rachel,  which  would  make  you  understand  it  per- 
fectly. No  matter.  Some  friends  of  mine  have 
an  interest  in  the  patent  for  the  whole  North-west, 
with  the  exception  of  Davenport,  Dubuque,  and 
two  or  three  other  cities,  which  had  been  sold 
before.  We  propose  to  establish  one  good  shop  to 
begin  with,  as  our  head-centre  ;  and  the  question 
now  is  where  it  shall  be  put.  I  have  been  rather 
in  favor  of  Chicago  myself,  it  is  such  an  advantage 
to  be  at  a  central  point.  Wherever  it  is  estab- 
lished, Chicago  will  be  my  central  point  for  some 
months,  till  we  are  ready  to  begin,  for  I  have  the 
oversight  of  all  the  sub-contracts  we  make. 

Oddly  enough,  as  very  likely  you  know,  our  old 
friend,  Mrs.  Worboise,  at  whose  adventures  you 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    177 

have  heard  us  laugh  so  much,  is  established  there. 
Would  you  mind  going  round  to  see  her,  and 
finding  out  surreptitiously  whether  I  can  go  to  her 
direct  when  I  come  ?  If  I  write  and  ask,  she  will 
turn  out  the  best  inmates  she  has ;  Abe  Lincoln 
and  his  wife  and  Thad  would  have  to  go  to  make 
room  for  me,  if  she  could  not  provide  otherwise. 
But  if  you  think  she  has  a  decent  attic,  or  other 
landing-place,  which  I  can  have  without  ruining 
her,  just  engage  it  for  me,  and  let  me  know. 
They  tell  me  business  was  never  opening  so 
briskly  in  Chicago.  But  I  believe  that  is  what 
you  Western  fellows  always  say.  How  soon  I 
shall  be  saying  "  we  Western  fellows  !  "  It  will 
be  real  good  to  live  in  the  same  "  school  deestrict " 
with  you  again,  old  fellow.  Good-by. 
Yours  for  ever, 

HORACE  VANZANDT. 

Mark  was  thoroughly  glad  to  find  that  one  of 
the  old  set  was  coming  out  to  be  near  him,  though 
it  were  but  for  a  time.  Of  course,  he  found  that 
Mrs.  Worboise  had  room  enough  for  Horace,  and 
he  was  only  sorry  that  he  had  established  himself 
on  the  West  Side.  She  was  in  that  part  of  the 
city  well  at  the  southward,  where  it  begins  to 
become  a  little  open,  and  her  good  spacious  house 
had  room  enough  and  to  spare  for  Horace  and  his 
8*  i. 


178  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

belongings.  Well  pleased  was  she  to  know  that 
fate  had  thrown  him  under  her  roof  again.  Mark 
was  quite  sure  that  the  letter  gave  him  pleasure 
so  far.  He  was  also  sure  that  it  gave  him  no  pain 
—  no,  no  sort  of  pain  —  to  find  Horace  speaking 
of  Rachel  and  Rachel's  drawing  as  if  he  were  so  in 
the  habit  of  regarding  her  as  entirely  his  own 
property,  that  there  need  be  no  explanation  why 
she  was  drawing  illustrations  of  specifications  for 
him.  He  was  sure  this  gave  him  no  pain.  But 
he  wondered  a  little  why  it  gave  him  no  pain. 
He  knew  very  well,  that  ever  since  Valentine's 
Day,  and  before,  every  poem  he  had  written  to 
anybody  had  been  written  to  Jane  Burgess. 
There  was  a  true  woman,  who  could  appreciate 
him  and  his.  Still,  he  could  not  but  remember, 
also,  that  night  when  Rachel's  mother  died,  and 
the  verses  he  wrote  to  her  the  next  Valentine's 
Day ;  and,  indeed,  he  remembered  that  he  wished 
he  knew  how  he  could  ask  her  for  a  little  drama 
of  his,  called  "  The  Pearl  in  the  Well,"  which  he 
had  sent  to  her  with  a  pretty  dedication,  and 
which  nobody  had  any  copy  of  excepting  her. 
He  was  not  quite  sure  but  he  could  get  it  brought 
out  at  Crosby's  Opera  House  ;  and,  if  he  had  not 
wholly  dropped  correspondence  with  Rachel,  he 
would  write  and  ask  her  for  it.  It  puzzled  him 
a  little  to  know,  first,  how  he  ever  could  have 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    179 

thought  that  she  was  so  good  a  critic  of  his  work ; 
and,  second,  why  he  was  not  more  jealous  of  Hor- 
ace, of  whom,  in  fact,  he  was  not  jealous  at  all. 

Of  which  mysteries  the  explanation  was  simple 
enough  to  anybody  who  could  look  at  them  without 
the  obscuring  films  which  clouded  Master  Mark's 
vision.  He  and  Rachel  Holley  had  been  to  school 
together,  and  had  gone  home  together.  She  had 
ridden  on  his  sled,  and,  in  return,  had  taught  him 
to  play  cat's-cradle.  Then  she  had  become  a 
woman  at  the  period  when  he  was  ceasing  to  be  a 
boy,  but  had  not  become  a  man.  Being  the 
woman  he  knew  best,  he  honored  her,  prized  her, 
and  supposed  he  loved  her.  It  is  a  mistake  which 
often  happens  where  propinquity,  as  Miss  Edge- 
worth  calls  it,  has  brought  a  boy  and  girl  together. 
The  woman  Rachel  judged  the  situation  better 
than  the  fledgling  Mark ;  and  this  was  the  reason 
why  Rachel  did  not  engage  herself  to  him,  when 
he  plead  so  earnestly,  and  wrote  verses  which  were 
so  pretty,  after  her  mother's  death. 

But  Mark  was  to  become  a  man  in  his  time.  A 
dreamy  man,  if  you  please  ;  a  man  who  did  not  yet 
know  much  about  how  the  wolf  was  to  be  kept 
from  the  door,  or  whether  the  little  god  of  love 
could  or  could  not  turn  the  spit.  Still,  he  was 
a  man.  Being  a  man,  he  had  been  thrown  into 
near  and  confidential  intercourse  with  another 


180  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

charming  woman,  Jane  Burgess.  Who,  indeed, 
was  not  in  confidential  intercourse  with  this  sympa- 
thetic Jane  ?  Yet,  again,  she  was  the  first  culti- 
vated and  accomplished  woman  whom  the  man 
Mark  Hinsdale  had  seen  nearly.  Being  the  AVO- 
man  he  knew  best,  he  honored  her  in  turn,  prized 
her,  and  supposed  he  loved  her.  He  wrote  her 
very  pretty  verses,  and  sent  her  very  charming 
letters.  He  certainly  loved  her  as  he  had  never 
loved  Rachel,  and  that  was  really  the  reason  why 
he  was  not  in  the  least  jealous  of  Horace  Van- 
zandt.  But  all  this,  which  it  is  easy  enough  for  all 
of  us  to  understand,  was  not  so  clear  to  Mark,  who 
could  not  understand  that  as  lately  as  two  years 
ago  he  was  in  that  transition  condition  of  the 
polliwog,  or  the  tadpole,  which,  by  the  more  care- 
ful writers  in  anthropology,  is  called  the  condition 
of  the  hobbledehoy. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE   OTHER.          181 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

'  I  "'HE  Bardies  family,  with  full  contingents  of 
nurses  for  the  children,  even  with  a  man- 
servant who  was  to  see  to  the  baggage,  as  if  it 
needed  any  seeing  to,  and  with  Jane,  of  course, 
had  gone  to  sleep  at  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  and  had 
waked  some  forty  miles  east  of  Windsor,  opposite 
Detroit,  in  Canada.  Jane  had  gulped  down  an 
immense  regret  when  she  had  found  that  she  was 
to  be  trundled  by  Niagara,  actually  "  in  full  sight 
of  the  cataract,"  as  Ned  Bardies  told  her,  without 
any  idea  of  the  pain  he  gave  her,  and  that  she  was 
not  to  have  any  sight  of  it,  not  even  to  be  waked 
to  see  the  shimmer  of  the  white  spray  in  the  moon- 
light, nor  to  hear  the  roar  of  the  water.  She  even 
had  rebellious  plans  that  she  would  sit  up  till  mid- 
night and  go  out  upon  the  platform  as  they  passed, 
if  so  she  might  fulfil  the  dream  of  twenty  years, 
and  at  least  feel  that  she  had  "seen  Niagara." 
But  no  one  gave  the  least  countenance  to  this. 
Her  berth  had  to  be  made  up  when  the  other 
berths  were  made  up.  All  she  could  do  was  to 


182  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

resolve  that  she  would  not  go  to  sleep.  Perhaps 
she  could  jump  up  when  the  time  came.  But, 
alas !  before  the  time  came,  she  was  so  far  asleep 
that  she  thought  it  was  ironing  day  at  Deacon 
Spinley's,  and  each  successive  kitchybunk  of  each 
twenty-foot  rail  that  they  passed  over,  appeared  in 
her  dream  as  a  flat-iron  thrown  by  Mrs.  Spinley  at 
the  crash  towel  which  was  hanging  on  her  roller. 
So  Jane  did  not  "  see  Niagara  "  that  time. 

Forty  miles  east  of  Windsor  everybody  was 
awake,  and  began  to  say  he  had  not  slept  a  wink 
all  night.  Jane  had  washed  herself  in  a  few 
thimblefuls  of  cinder  soup,  which  at  her  call 
distilled  like  dew  into  the  bottom  of  a  cinder- 
specked  basin  in  the  ladies'  dressing-room.  She  had 
rubbed  some  ring  or  lamp  she  had  about  her,  and 
those  good  genii,  who  were  always  her  friends,  had 
arranged  the  "tangled  dark-brown  hair,"  so  that 
it  seemed  as  if  nothing  had  disturbed  her.  The 
same  genii  had  created  for  her  matchless  and  spot- 
less cuffs  and  collars.  Then  Jane  went  back  to  the 
narrow  quarters  where  she  had  slept,  and  found 
that  some  other  genii  had  been  round  with  wands, 
and  that  the  berths  had  disappeared,  and  that  in 
their  places  were  wide  and  deep  "rep-covered" 
seats,  lighted  by  large  plate-glass  windows,  through 
which  she  could  see,  what  was  a  sight  quite  new  to 
her,  the  blackened  clearings,  the  log-cabins,  and 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    183 

the  September  harvest  and  fruitage  of  a  new 
country.  The  sun  was  well  up,  and  the  scene  was 
exciting  enough,  even  to  a  person  less  hearty, 
healthy,  and  alive  than  Jane. 

An  hour  of  this  rapid  panorama  shifting,  and  she 
knew,  without  question,  that  she  was  hungry. 
But  Jane  was  a  little  reticent ;  and  she  lived  on  a 
principle  which  had  never  yet  failed  her,  which  the 
„  Western  people  embody  in  their  direction,  "  Don't 
be  first  to  squawk."  Jane  knew  very  well,  that, 
by  the  same  law  of  nature  which  made  her  hungry, 
Ned  Bardies  was  already  more  hungry  than  she ; 
arid  she  knew  that  if  he  were  in  that  condition,  all 
powers  in  earth  would  be  set  in  operation  to  meet 
his  necessities,  and,  still  more,  that  she  should  fare 
as  well  as  he.  So  Jane  still  looked  out  upon  pigs 
arid  stumps  and  corn  and  pumpkins  and  sheep  and 
log-cabins ;  caught  now  and  then  the  long,  low 
line  of  the  lake  which  they  were  skirting ;  saw  in 
a  few  moments  more  that  the  number  of  cabins 
increased,  and  that  they  were  approaching  some 
place  with  a  name ;  saw  Ned  Bardies  begin  to  bus- 
tle, and  to  stir  up  the  nurses  and  the  children: 
and  thus  it  happened  that  in  fifteen  minutes  from 
the  time  when  Jane  was  well  aware  that  she  was 
hungry,  she  was  hustled  upstairs  in  the  steam 
ferry-boat  at  Windsor,  had  been  placed  opposite 
some  sausages  and  fried  oysters,  by  that  most  at- 


184  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

tentive  host  who  presides  there,  was  receiving  his 
assurances  that  every  hand-bag,  veil,  umbrella, 
newspaper,  and  shawl-strap  were  in  such  safety  as 
the  bank  of  England  even  did  not  give  its  specie, 
and  was  listening  to  his  explanations  of  the  length 
of  time  which  was  before  her  for  her  meal.  "  Cen- 
tral Michigan !  were  they  going  by  the  Central  ?  " 
Heavens !  what  hours  were  before  them  then  for 
breakfast !  In  all  which  her  voluble  and  hospita- 
ble friend  was  substantially  correct.  Jane  had 
tune  enough  for  a  good  breakfast. 

The  Bardies  children,  sandwiched  in  with  nurses, 
were  at  her  left.  At  their  extreme  left  they  were 
protected  by  Mrs.  Bardies.  Mr.  Ned  Bardies,  be- 
longing to  a  sex  which  has  rights,  was  downstairs, 
far  from  any  breakfast-room,  watching  their  bag- 
gage as  it  passed  the  customs-officer.  So  were  all 
the  men  of  all  the  parties.  The  ladies  and  children, 
therefore,  were  well  forward  with  their  breakfast, 
—  the  children  had  finished  their  beefsteak  and 
omelet,  their  sausages  and  fried  oysters,  and 
were  beginning  on  their  buckwheats  and  maple 
sirup,  when  four  gentlemen  filed  up  from  the 
lower  deck  to  take  such  chance  of  breakfast  as  they 
might,  and  found  seats  opposite  our  friends.  The 
last  of  them  flung  his  cap  and  gloves  on  a  table, 
ordered  "  coffee,  steak,  Indian  bread,"  drew  a  stool 
into  place,  and  turned  to  sit  opposite  Jane.  It 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER,    185 

was  Horace  Vanzandt.     One  of  the  lucky  double- 
sixes  of  travelling ! 

A  bright,  hearty,  pleasant  addition  he  made  to 
their  party.  He  and  Jane  had  not  met  now  for 
more  than  a  year,  and  only  for  a  few  moments 
then.  All  six  of  us  suppose,  looking  back  upon  it, 
that  neither  of  them  appeared  to  the  other  as 
changed ;  certainly,  neither  would  have  said  that 
the  other  was  "improved;"  still,  as  we  have 
talked  it  over,  our  verdict  has  been,  that  these 
two  fresh  and  true  young  people  could  not  have 
knocked  about  in  the  world  as  much  as  they  had  in 
two  years,  more  or  less,  since  the  famous  Greyford 
sleigh-ride,  without  gaining  that  self-possession,  in- 
formation, tact,  if  you  please  ;  that  facility  in  ex- 
pression, and  facility  in  listening,  which  varied 
society  gives,  to  which  the  reading  of  good  novels 
contributes,  which,  all  combined,  so  lighten  up  man 
or  woman  in  intercourse,  even  with  the  nearest  of 
their  old  friends.  At  all  events,  Horace  had  a  world 
of  information  about  people  in  whom  Jane  was  inter- 
ested, which  was  new  to  her,  and  she  as  much  that 
was  new  to  him.  Still  more,  he  had  been  making 
rapid  steps  in  his  profession.  He  had  learned  very 
thoroughly,  by  this  time,  how  little  he  knew ;  an 
immense  acquisition  for  the  youngster  of  three  and 
twenty.  She  had  moved,  as  people  say,  in  the  so- 
ciety of  Boston  and  Newport ;  among  people  no 


186  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

whit  more  intelligent  or  highly-bred  than  those  she 
left  at  Greyford,  —  but  among  people  of  many  more 
types,  and  their  experience  had  varied  hers,  and 
had  quickened  her  methods  of  expression.  So  it 
happened,  if  we  six  have  rightly  analyzed  and  syn- 
thetized,  that  Horace  was  more  quiet,  more  simple, 
and  far  more  profound  in  what  he  had  to  say  ;  that 
Jane  was  less  shy,  and  more  animated,  in  what  she 
had  to  say.  Certainly,  talk  ranged  over  an  immense 
range  ;  but  neither  said  any  thing  of  the  bear. 

The  Bardleses  all  made  Horace  feel  at  home. 
Indeed,  they  were  occupying  almost  the  whole 
of  a  drawing-room  car  with  their  immense  party. 
Nor  is  there  a  better  chance  for  long  and  satisfac- 
tory talk  than  in  a  good  drawing-room  car,  when 
the  road  is  well  ballasted,  and  the  train  well  run. 
No  postman,  nay,  no  door-bell,  there !  So,  for  a 
happy  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  be  the  same  more  or 
less,  they  talked,  they  amused  the  children,  they 
read  the  September  "  Old  and  New,"  they  talked 
again,  and  cut  out  cats  and  horses  from  paper  for 
the  little  ones,  and  talked  again,  and  talked  again ; 
and  so  they  came  to  Marshall,  where  the  train 
stopped  for  dinner.  Dinner  was  soon  over,  and  all 
the  party  were  back  again  in  their  car  but  Ned 
Bardies  himself,  who  was  taking  the  last  possible 
moment  with  his  cigar.  His  wife,  as  usual,  began  to 
be  uneasy ;  the  train  began  to  start,  when  Ned 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          187 

appeared  at  the  door  triumphant,  threw  it  open, 
and  waited  on  the  platform  for  Nettie  Sylva  to 
come  in ! 

Our  readers  may  recollect  the  circumstances  under 
which  Horace  Vanzandt  and  Nettie  Sylva  parted 
at  the  North  Denmark  sleigh-ride.  We  have  tried 
to  make  them  understand  with  how  much  and  with 
how  little  feeling  Nettie  wrote  to  him  when  he 
was  first  in  New  York ;  how  far  she  then  felt  hurt 
by  his  manner  in  writing  to  her,  and  how  far  she 
pretended  to  feel  hurt.  We  have  also  tried  ^to 
make  the  reader  understand  how  deep  was  the 
wound  which  Jane  Burgess  had  received,  when,  in 
face  of  the  observations  of  the  mild  police  of 
Greyford,  and  of  every  decision  of  its  common 
law,  Jeff  Fleming,  who  had  been  supposed  to  be 
hers,  and  hers  only  since  they  outspelled  the  best 
spellers  in  the  district,  had  transferred  his  heart 
and  hand  to  this  same  Nettie,  after  his  long  illness 
at  the  deacon's.  To  analyze  and  synthetize  on 
those  yearnings  was  comparatively  easy.  It  is  not 
quite  so  easy  to  say  just  what  went  through  each 
heart  of  the  three,  and  each  mind,  when  they  met 
so  unexpectedly  in  the  drawing-room  car  at  Mar- 
shall. 

They  were  all  fond  of  each  other ;  that  was  cer- 
tain. The  girls  were  very  fond  of  each  other. 
Still,  Jane  did  not  think  Nettie  had  ever  treated 


188  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Horace  fairly,  and  she  had  told  her  so  more  than 
once.  For  all  that,  in  the  very  depth  of  her  heart, 
Jane  was  glad  that,  as  things  had  turned,  Nettie 
had  treated  Horace  as  she  had.  It  was  clear  to 
Jane's  well-balanced  mind  that  Nettie  never  could 
have  made  Horace  happy,  and  she  doubted  whether 
Horace  would  have  made  her  happy.  Now,  to 
pass  to  Nettie,  the  bright,  pretty,  coquettish  thing 
we  must  confess  she  was;  she  was  "just  as  glad 
as  she  could  be  "  to  see  them  both.  She  said  so, 
and  we  all  six  think  she  was.  It  was  her  way  to 
be  glad ;  and  she  was  more  apt  to  be  glad  when 
she  was  on  the  top  crest  of  a  wave  that  seemed 
likely  to  topple  right  over,  than  on  any  conceivable 
level  of  any  summer  sea.  Still,  though  Nettie  was 
"just  as  glad  as  she  could  be,"  she  undoubtedly 
was  well  aware  that  Jeff  Fleming  was  as  entirely 
Jane's  property,  when  he  came  frozen  stiff  into 
the  deacon's  house,  had  only  Jane  asserted  suze- 
rainty, as  was  any  unmarked  log  the  deacon's 
property  when  it  was  flung  up  by  the  river  on  his 
meadow.  Nettie  knew  this  in  her  guilty  heart; 
and  she  knew  as  well  that  that  night  when  she  had 
played  "  Les  Larmes  "  to  Jeff,  and  he,  susceptible, 
tender  fellow,  had  been  so  tearful,  so  tender,  and 
so  happy,  she  knew,  or  thought  she  knew,  she  had 
been  giving  a  great  wrench  at  Jane's  heart-strings. 
And  as  for  Horace,  —  Horace  had  comforted  him- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    189 

self  with  Rachel;  yes,  verily.  Still  Nettie  did 
happen  to  notice  that  the  guard-chain  Horace 
wore  was  that  she  knit  for  him,  and  that  there  had 
been  a  time  when  she  could  have  kept  him  in 
Greyford  for  ever  had  she  chosen.  So,  though 
Nettie  was  "just  as  glad  as  she  could  be  "  to  see 
them  both,  we  all  six  think  that  it  was  with  the  joy 
of  wild  adventure,  and  that  she  was  curious  to  know 
how  many  of  the  egg-shells  among  which  they 
were  all  to  tread  would  be  broken,  and  how  many 
would  hold  firm  their  yolks  and  their  albumen. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  neither  of  the  girls 
seemed  externally  in  the  least  disturbed  by  any  of 
these  reflections;  they  kissed  and  laughed,  and 
held  each  other  by  all  four  hands  ;  then  Nettie  did 
all  the  necessary  civilities  to  Mrs.  Bardies  and  the 
rest ;  and  then  the  three,  Jane,  Nettie,  and  Horace, 
nestled  down  into  one  vis-d-vis,  and  began  talking 
of  how  it  had  all  fallen  out  that  they  had  all  come 
together.  Horace  was  trying  to  persuade  himself 
that  he  ought  not  to  feel  confused.  Had  not  Nettie 
snubbed  him,  once,  twice,  thrice,  n  times  ?  to  take 
his  favorite  mathematical  formulas.  Nay,  had  she 
not  accepted  Jeff  willingly,  in  defiance  of  him  and 
of  Jane  both,  and  of  all  Greyford  beside  ?  None 
the  less  is  it  true,  that,  of  the  three,  Horace  was 
the  only  one  who  for  a  moment  appeared  to  be  ill 
at  ease. 


190  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

But  this  did  not  last  long.  They  were  soon  tell- 
ing each  other  facts,  and  facts  are  an  immense  relief 
when  there  is  any  loose  screw  in  people's  senti- 
ments. Nettie  was  explaining  about  -her  journey- 
ings.  Mr.  Holley  was  prospecting  in  his  eternal 
lumber  speculations,  and  had  taken  Rachel  with 
him.  They  had  been  up  in  Minnesota,  beyond  St. 
Paul's,  she  knew  not  where.  Nettie,  meanwhile, 
had  been  staying  with  an  old  friend  at  Ann  Arbor. 
She  was  to  meet  the  Holleys  at  the  Sherman  House 
in  Chicago  on  this  particular  day,  and  here  she  was, 
so  far  on  her  way.  She  had  been  riding  with  them 
all  the  way  from  Ann  Arbor  without  knowing  it. 

Then  the  Hofleys  would  be  in  Chicago  with 
them  all !  And  Mark  was  there  already.  What 
fun! 

Neither  Jane  nor  Horace  dared  ask  Nettie  where 
Jeff  was.  And  Nettie,  dashing  as  she  was,  did  not 
happen  to  tell. 

Evening  found  them  at  Chicago.  Horace  was  to 
go  to  his  quarters  at  Mrs.  Worboise's.  The  Bar- 
dieses  and  Jane  were  all  to  go  to  the  new  house  in 
Erie  Street.  But  all  parties  first  went  with  Net- 
tie to  the  Sherman  House.  There,  sure  enough, 
they  found  Rachel  Holley  and  her  father.  There, 
as  it  happened,  was  Mark  Hinsdale,  making  a 
friendly  call.  The  girls  both  thought  that  he  and 
Rachel  seemed  on  a  very  brotherly  and  sisterly 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.         191 

footing.  Five  of  the  six,  in  the  chances  of  life, 
had  brought  up  at  Chicago.  They  agreed  they 
would  all  see  the  sights  together  the  next  day. 
Who  could  tell  when  they  all  should  come  together 
again ! 


192  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 


CHAPTER    XX. 

nr^HE  sight-seeing  lasted  longer  than  they  had 
expected ;  and  all  parties  of  our  friends  grew 
well  wonted  to  Chicago  before  it  was  at  an  end. 
The  Bardies  cortege  was  settling  down  in  their  new 
house.  Mr.  Holley's  combinations  about  the  lum- 
ber lands  in  Minnesota  seemed  to  draw  out  into 
longer  and  longer  convolutions,  which  he  explained 
to  no  one,  and  for  which  no  one  cared.  They 
began  on  their  lion-hunting  with  determined  ardor, 
supposing  that  they  must  finish  it  in  three  days. 
But  the  days  lengthened  into  weeks ;  and  for  every 
day  of  every  week,  these  young  people  found 
themselves  together  almost  every  afternoon,  every 
evening  without  exception,  and  sometimes  in  the 
morning.  There  was  an  excursion  to  Hyde  Park, 
the  pretty  watering-place  of  Chicago ;  there  was 
an  excursion  to  Riverside,  that  wonderful  and  beau- 
tiful country  town,  where,  before  your  house  is 
built,  your  sidewalk  is  laid,  your  water  and  gas- 
pipes  ready,  your  drainage  adjusted;  where  in 
short,  every  grievance  of  ordinary  building  is  cared 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          193 

for  before  you  begin.  There  were  the  stock-yards 
to  be  seen,  under  the  oversight  of  Mr.  Denison,  a 
new-made  friend  of  Mark's,  who  was  very  attentive, 
and  with  whom  that  sad  flirt  Nettie  made  very 
rapid  acquaintance.  Always  there  was,  for  a  place 
of  rendezvous,  the  cool,  pleasant  reading-room  of 
the  Johnsonian  Library,  where  Mark  had  created 
for  the  time  a  vat  of  lemonade,  having  ordered  ice 
by  the  week  from  the  ice-man.  There  were  the 
elevators  to  be  seen,  and  explained  in  detail  by 
Horace.  There  were  the  water-works,  with  the 
most  interesting  and  courteous  explanations  from 
Mr.  Chesborough  and  Mr.  Clarke.  Jane,  Nettie, 
and  Rachel  had  all  been  teachers ;  and  they  had 
found  some  old  Normal-School  acquaintance  in  the 
high  school,  which  had  a  great  interest  for  them. 
And  in  Mr.  Barry  they  had  the  most  instructive 
and  kind  guide  in  the  treasures,  then  still  in  their 
fulness,  of  the  Chicago  Historical  Library.  In 
those  days  there  was  a  great  deal  for  intelligent" 
curiosity  to  see  and  enjoy  in  the  young  city  of  the 
Lakeside. 

No  one  of  them,  perhaps,  observed  it  then ;  but 
the  rather  unusual  fact  for  them,  that  they  were 
not  precisely  paired,  brought  these  young  people 
into  a  relation  new  to  them,  and  much  more  fresh 
and  healthy  than  they  had  ever  been  in  before  since 
childhood.  As  they  had  grown  to  be  men  and 


194  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

women,  they  had  always,  by  some  fate  outside 
themselves,  been  thrown  in  couples.  At  the  sleigh- 
ride,  for  instance,  already  spoken  of,  it  was  to  be 
Mark  and  Rachel,  Jeff  and  Jane,  Horace  and  Net- 
tie. In  New  York,  it  was  Rachel  and  Horace.  In 
Boston,  it  was  Jane  and  Mark.  Always  they  had 
been  counted  off  by  twos,  as  the  drill  sergeants 
say,  whether  they  would  or  no.  But  in  these 
various  walks,  rides,  and  sails  of  Chicago,  that  ar- 
rangement was  necessarily  broken.  For  there  were 
only  two  of  the  young  men,  —  nobody  knew  where 
Jeff  Fleming  was,  —  and  there  were  all  three  of 
the  young  women.  It  might  well  be  that  there 
was  some  Mr.  Denison,  or  Mr.  Marsh,  or  Mr.  Fay 
beside,  of  the  party,  —  very  likely  two  or  three  of 
the  Chicago  gentlemen,  who  had  found  out  that 
three  pretty  Yankee  girls  were  seeing  sights  to- 
gether. But  the  old  doublet  combination  was 
broken  up.  If  they  started  in  one  arrangement 
for  a  walk,  they  came  back  in  another.  And,  with- 
out their  thinking  much  of  it,  each  of  them  was 
thus  making  out  the  real  life  and  character  of  the 
others  a  thousand  times  better  than  they  ever  did 
before.  And  no  people  can  find  more  surprises  in 
each  other  than  those  who  have  seen  each  other 
since  they  were  babies. 

Perhaps  the  only  person  dissatisfied  with  these 
daily  arrangements  was  the  excellent  Mrs.  Wor- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    195 

boise,  the  only  person  who  saw  from  the  outside 
how  these  foolish  little  pawns  were  moving  to  and 
fro.  Mrs.  Worboise  would  get  up  nice,  bountiful 
teas  for  the  young  people  when  they  came  home  all 
alive  with  the  excitement  of  walk  or  drive  ;  and  she 
would  watch  at  the  door  —  oh,  so  earnestly !  —  for 
their  return.  And  when  her  dear  Rachel  came,  a 
little  earlier  than  the  others,  with  some  Mr.  Fay, 
or  Mr.  Marsh,  and  not  with  Horace,  Mrs.  Wor- 
boise did  not  like  it  at  all.  And  when,  last  of  all, 
Horace  came  in  with  Jane  Burgess,  Mrs.  Worboise 
did  not  like  that  at  all.  Mrs.  Worboise  had  been 
sure  that  Horace  and  Rachel  were  meant  for  each 
other,  ever  since  they  went  to  the  Cooper  Institute 
together.  And  why  he  did  not  hold  by  Rachel, 
she  did  not  see  !  And  why  Rachel  did  not  hold  to 
him,  she  did  not  see !  She  had  almost  a  mind  to 
speak  to  Rachel !  She  could  not  bear  it ! 

No  !  dear  Mrs.  Worboise,  no !  all  the  half-dozen 
of  us  think  you  had  better  not  speak  to  Rachel. 
Speaking  to  them  does  no  good,  we  think:  we 
think  it  does  harm.  The  truth  was,  that  Rachel 
and  Horace  had  helped  each  other,  had  helped 
each  other  a  great,  great  deal.  He  had  been  kind 
to  her,  and  she  had  been  kind  to  him.  In  the  lone- 
liness of  New  York,  this  had  been  to  each  of  them  a 
great  comfort.  But  comfort  is  not  every  thing. 
And  it  was  made  perfectly  clear  to  Rachel's  mind 


196  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

in  the  days  when  they  were  in  Chicago,  that  she 
liked  this  merry  Mr.  Marsh,  and  this  thoughtful 
Mr.  Fay,  and  this  kind  and  attentive  Mr.  Denison, 
just  as  well  as  she  liked  Horace.  And  Rachel  was 
quite  too  true  to  make  Horace  fancy  that  she  liked 
him  any  better.  What  Horace  found  out,  perhaps 
we  shall  some  day  know. 

One  Saturday  night,  as  they  landed  from  an  ex- 
cursion on  the  water,  Mr.  Forsyth,  who  handed 
Jane  on  shore,  and  walked  up  the  street  with  her, 
asked  her  where  she  was  to  go  to  church  the  next 
day ;  and,  before  the  party  separated,  she  held  a 
congress  on  the  street-corner  that  they  might  ar- 
range to  go  to  church  together  the  next  day,  on 
their  last  Sunday  in  Chicago.  On  their  other  Sun- 
days they  had  been  broken  up,  by  one  and  another 
chance,  and  parted.  This  time  they  would  go  to- 
gether. 

To  this  they  agreed ;  and,  after  a  little  chaffer, 
it  was  determined  that  Mark  and  Horace  should 
meet  at  the  Sherman  House,  escort  Rachel  and 
Nettie  to  Mr.  Bardles's  house,  where  Jane  should 
be  in  waiting,  and  they  would  all  go  together  to 
Unity  Church,  on  the  North  Side,  to  hear  Robert 
Collyer,  who  had  not  long  returned  from  England ; 
and  this  they  did  accordingly. 

They  were  not  too  late,  certainly,  but  not  too 
early  ;  were  met  by  a  courteous  gentleman  at  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHEE.    197 

door  of  the  church,  who  found  they  would  be  glad 
to  sit  near  each  other,  and  apologized  that  he  must 
therefore  place  them  near  the  door.  The  church 
was  large,  without  galleries ;  it  was  already  well 
filled.  The  low  pews,  curving  a  little  back  in  the 
middle,  were  ranged  so  close  to  each  other  as  to 
give  a  social  or  congregate  aspect  to  the  congrega- 
tion. And  the  first  feeling  with  our  Connecticut 
friends  was,  that  they  were  at  home. 

The  organ  was  of  sweet  tone,  and  was  very  well 
played ;  something  almost  weird  in  the  voluntary 
started  the  tears  in  Rachel's  eyes.  Then  the 
preacher  rose  in  the  pulpit.  A  large,  strongly- 
built  man,  with  full,  cheerful  face,  iron-gray  hair, 
and  sympathetic,  though  piercing  eyes,  he  read  the 
opening  hymn,  with  a  home-like  earnestness,  that, 
in  an  instant,  made  them  forget  him,  while  they 
were  lost  in  the  emotion  of  the  lines.  This  direct 
simplicity  controlled  them  even  more  when  he  read 
the  Scripture.  The  passage  was  that  in  Luke,  de- 
scribing the  unfruitful  fig-tree,  and  the  allusion  to 
the  eighteen  men  who  were  killed  by  the  tower  in 
Siloam.  The  young  people  felt  almost  as  if  the 
eighteen  were  their  own  friends,  and  wondered 
why  they  had  never  before  cared  for  their  destruc- 
tion. After  prayer,  the  congregation  sat  silent, 
while  a  few  plaintive  chords  from  the  organ  seemed 
to  take  up  the  eager  and  intensely  personal  peti- 


198  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

tion.  It  was  really  a  relief  that  no  one  said  a  word, 
for  those  overcharged  minutes.  And  when  the 
preacher  rose  again,  with  the  hymn-book,  and  read 
the  first  verse  of  the  hymn,  with  intense  feeling, 
no  one  was  surprised  that  he  laid  down  the  book, 
and  sat  down,  as  if  he  could  read  no  more. 

"  I  want  a  principle  within, 
Of  jealous,  godly  fear; 
A  sensibility  to  sin; 
A  pain  to  find  it  near." 

After  the  hymn  was  sung,  he  gave  out  his 
text. 

"  Or  those  eighteen,  upon  whom  the  tower  in 
Siloam  fell  and  slew  them :  think  ye  that  they 
were  sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt  in  Jerusa- 
lem?" 

Our  young  friends  had  never  heard  such  a  ser- 
mon. They  were  magnetized  by  the  speaker's 
personal  power ;  they  were  led  along  in  perfect 
sympathy  by  his  simplicity ;  they  were  moved  to 
intense  feeling  by  his  undisguised  emotion.  In 
the  beginning,  this  or  that  quaint  illustration  or 
suggestion,  thrown  in  without  any  reserve  in  his 
curious  Yorkshire  dialect,  made  them  turn  to  each 
other  sometimes  with  a  sympathetic  smile.  But, 
before  he  was  done,  sympathy  expressed  itself 
rather  by  pressure  of  hand  with  hand,  or  stillness 
even  more  rapt  than  ever.  For  he  was  speaking 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    199 

now  of  the  mutual  and  common  life  of  men. 
How  impossible  for  any  one  of  us  to  live  for  him- 
self, or  to  die  for  himself !  We  must  not  say  nor 
think,  that  those  are  publicans,  and  we  are  purer 
than  they :  do  they  sin,  is  it  not  because  the 
atmosphere  of  their  lives  has  been  so  tainted? 
and  who  is  responsible  for  that  atmosphere,  if 
not  we,  among  the  rest  ?  He  alluded  to  the 
horrible  frauds  detected  just  then  in  the  New 
York  Ring,  but  it  was  without  invective ;  from 
that  allusion  he  passed  on  to  speak  with  intense 
feeling  of  that  average  conscience  of  the  nation,  in 
which  the  conception  or  execution  of  such  frauds 
could  be  possible  ;  and  he  held  man,  woman,  and 
child  to  the  duty  of  purifying  that  conscience, 
and  quickening  the  common  life.  The  whole 
hushed  assembly  testified  by  its  subdued  manner, 
as  the  service  ended,  to  the  power  of  this  personal 
appeal. 

As  our  friends  began  their  walk  home,  Nettie 
found  herself  walking  with  Mark  Hinsdale.  "  If 
I  lived  within  twenty  miles  of  that  man,"  she 
said,  "  I  would  hear  no  other  preacher.  I  would 
come  here  if  I  came  barefoot.  O  Mark!  what 
lives  we  lead!  How  can  one  fling  away  life  as 
one  does,  when,  as  he  says,  the  thoughtless  make 
others  thoughtless  and  the  brave  make  others 
brave  ? " 


200  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

It  seemed  to  Mark  that  he  had  never  seen  the 
real  side  of  Nettie,  beneath  her  merry  play, 
before. 

Jane  and  Rachel  were  together,  Horace  with 
them.  "  I  was  never  in  a  Unitarian  church  be- 
fore," said  Rachel.  "  Are  they  always  so  grave 
and  silent  as  they  leave  church,  and  as  they  go 
home  ?  " 

"  I  doubt  if  they  always  hear  such  sermons," 
said  Horace.  "  These  people  seem  to  me  to  feel 
as  I  do  ;  as  if  I  never  knew  before  my  duty  to  the 
> world,  or  as  if"  —  and  he  paused  and  shuddered 
—  "as  if  we  were  all  on  the  edge  of  a  common 
calamity." 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    £01 


CHAPTER  XXL 

A  S  the  five  went  and  came  on  that  October 

Sunday,  how  many  times  they  said  to  each 

other,  what  they  had  said  so  many  times  before : 

"  If  only   Jeff  Fleming  were  here,  it  would  be 

perfect!  " 

In  saying  this  they  were  wholly  wrong.  The 
truth  was,  that,  if  Jeff  Fleming  had  been  there, 
they  would,  almost  of  course,  have  paired  off  in 
one  of  the  old  and  familiar  combinations.  They 
would  have  lost  just  that  vivacity  of  the  new  dis- 
coveries which  they  were  making  all  the  time ; 
and  making  precisely  because  their  partnerships 
changed  with  every  new  house  into  which  they 
entered,  and,  indeed,  with  every  other  change  of 
their  little  plans. 

Meanwhile,  Jeff  wats  coming  to  them,  though 
they  did  not  know  it,  a  good  deal  faster  than  the 
old  poetical  expressions  for  full  speed  can  tell.  He 
was  coming  a  good  deal  faster  than  the  average 
wind  comes.  He  was  coming  as  fast  as  high- 
pressure  steam,  thrown  first  on  one  end  and  then 
9* 


202  BIX  OF  ONE  EY 

on  the  other  of  the  pistons  of  a  first-class  engine 
from  the  Boston  Locomotive  Shop  would  cany 
him.  Now,  if  any  of  the  new  school  of  poets 
wants  to  write  a  realistic  poem  about  Jeff  Fleming, 
let  him  try  putting  that  statement  into  rhythm, 
verse,  and  rhyme. 

After  he  has  done  this,  he  may  go  on  to  say, 
that  a  little  after  they  left  Cass  Corners,  on  that 
October  Sunday  afternoon,  three  or  four  very  wild 
cows,  tormented  by  five  or  six  wilder  German  boys, 
left  the  pasture  where  they  would  fain  have  been 
quiet,  broke  through  its  fence,  and  were  rushing 
across  the  railway,  when  the  express,  to  which 
Jeff  had  intrusted  himself,  struck  full  on  the 
whitest  of  the  herd.  She  disappeared ;  but  the 
engine  was  not  so  fortunate  with  the  other  cows, 
and  when  it  was  done  with  them,  it  was  lying  in 
the  prairie,  some  feet  below  the  level  it  had  been 
running  on,  gasping  the  last  inarticulate  word 
which  it  would  speak  for  many  days.  Jeff  and 
the  other  passengers,  startled  from  their  naps, 
sprang  up,  to  discover  that  they  were  not  hurt, 
and  to  call  an  unexpected  town  meeting  for  the 
advice  and  assistance  of  the  conductor  and  engi- 
neer. The  hours  spent  in  contemplating  the 
wrecks  of  engine  and  cows,  in  repairing  damages, 
and  in  waiting  for  another  engine,  threw  them 
wholly  out  of  time.  The  road  was  no  longer 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          203 

theirs,  to  take  the  expressive  phrase  of  the  craft. 
Their  pride  was  humbled,  as  is  a  great  cardinal's 
after  his  fall.  Only  this  morning,  and  every  thing 
got  out  of  their  way!  Only  this  evening,  and 
they  must  shirk  off  upon  sidings,  and  get  out  of 
everybody's  else  way ;  all  because  four  cows  did 
not  understand  the  eternal  etiquettes,  and  know 
that  precedence  must  be  given  to  an  express- 
train. 

So  was  it  that,  as  Jeff  and  his  companions  at 
last  struck  Lake  Michigan,  and  thought  now  that 
all  was  clear  for  them  to  approach  Chicago,  it  was 
already  well  advanced  toward  midnight.  Some 
one,  who  stepped  in  from  a  way  station,  bade  Jeff 
look  out  and  see  the  prairie  fire  at  the  northward. 

Prairie  fire,  indeed !  One  passenger  after  an- 
other threw  up  his  window  on  each  side  of  the 
car,  and  looked  into  the  night  air ;  and  as  they 
rushed  northward,  at  their  old  speed  again  now, 
and  the  flames  and  glowing  smoke-clouds  grew 
higher  on  the  horizon,  every  one  knew  that  this 
was  no  fire  of  hay  and  straw  and  stubble,  but  that 
the  city  itself,  which  was  home  to  most  of  them 
and  harbor  to  all  of  them,  was  in  flames. 

They  dashed  into  the  station,  wild  for  news,  to 
find  all  silent  there.  The  throng  which  usually 
welcomes  the  arrival  of  an  express  was  elsewhere 
now ;  not  one  hackman  to  urge  his  claims,  not  one 


204  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

teamster  to  plead  for  a  trunk.  Even  the  few 
women  who  found  themselves  on  that  Sunday 
train,  saw  that  their  friends  had  not  come  to  meet 
them.  The  porters  and  switch-tenders  on  duty 
could  hardly  tell  them  more  than  what  they  knew 
already,  —  that  Chicago  was  in  flames. 

Few  indeed  had  stopped  to  ask  this,  only  those 
who  were  strangers  as  completely  as  Jeff  Fleming 
was.  The  larger  part  had  leaped  from  the  car 
platforms  as  soon  as  the  motion  was  slow  enough, 
and  had  disappeared  at  once  on  their  way  to  ware- 
house or  to  home,  which  they  knew  must  be  in 
danger.  Jeff  himself,  who  knew  not  the  name  of 
a  street,  and  indeed  had  no  special  place  to  go  to, 
as  soon  as  he  found  that  he  could  learn  nothing 
from  the  porters,  rushed,  self-directed,  toward  the 
line  of  fire.  At  first  the  stillness  and  solitude 
were  terrible  to  him.  All  was  light  as  day,  and 
yet  desert  as  midnight.  He  could  hear  his  own 
boot-heel  on  the  sidewalk,  and  in  that  square  he 
could  see  no  one.  But,  in  a  moment  more,  when  he 
was  in  the  presence  of  the  fire  itself,  he  saw  why 
there  had  been  solitude  before.  For  now  he  had 
come  into  a  jam  of  people,  who  did  know  the  city, 
as  he  did  not,  and  were  on  one  of  the  great  gan- 
glions of  its  circulation.  Jeff  felt  a  terrible  pang 
cross  him,  as  he  saw  the  struggles  and  horrors  of 
this  crowd.  Here  was  a  young  man,  with  a  sick 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    205 

child  of  four  or  five  years  old  in  his  arms.  Oh, 
how  wretched  her  pale  face  was !  "  Will  you 
make  way  forme?  this  child  is  dying."  And  the 
poor  mother  was  close  behind.  Jeff  felt  it  like  a 
personal  pang  cross  him.  Where  were  the  three 
Greyford  girls  in  this  wild  confusion  ?  Were  they 
lost  in  the  crowd,  as  he  was?  Was  there  any 
one  to  take  care  of  them?  Point  by  point  Jeff 
crossed  that  street.  Between  the  back  wheels  of 
wagons  there  is  a  little  space,  even  in  a  terrible 
crowd,  of  which  a  resolute  pedestrian  can  avail  him- 
self. And  Jeff  was  not  a  man  to  shrink.  He 
crossed  the  avenue,  —  pressing  still  towards  the 
fire  —  ran  up  a  street  which  was  almost  desolate 
again,  and  this  time  faced  a  coffle  of  horses,  wild 
with  fright,  —  some  of  them  hooded  in  the  jackets 
of  the  men  who  had  led  them  from  their  stable, 
others,  blindfolded  by  such  rags  as  could  be  seized 
upon,  —  haltered  together,  and  flanked  by  as  many 
men  and  boys  as  could  be  brought  into  the  service, 
driven  from  the  light,  down  into  safer  regions, 
where  they  could  be  harnessed  in  their  turn,  and 
put  to  the  work  which  was  so  essential.  Jeff 
shrunk  into  a  doorway  till  this  wild  cortege  passed 
on,  and  then  started  again  for  the  line  of  fire.  He 
came  on  it  in  a  moment,  sooner  than  he  expected, 
—  came  close  on  a  steam  fire-engine,  whose  fore- 
man, hoarse  and  black,  was  just  giving  the  orders 


206  BIX  OF  ONE  BY 

to  limber  up,  that  she  might  be  put  in  a  station  to 
windward.  Jeff  saw  by  the  unconscious  gestures 
of  the  men,  that  the  flames,  or  the  burning  brands, 
had  leaped  over  their  heads  as  they  worked ;  he 
could  see  that  the  treacherous  eaves  of  a  high 
warehouse  forty  rods  behind  them  were  in  flames. 
Jeff  had  found  his  place  now  :  he  bore  a  hand  man- 
fully with  the  rest,  at  the  tongue  of  the  engine ; 
neither  questioned  why,  nor  made  reply,  as  one 
order  after  another  was  given ;  only  admired  the 
sublime  audacity  of  the  foreman,  who  was  doing 
his  personal  duty  still,  and  doing  it  cheerfully,  in 
the  face  of  such  tremendous  odds.  "Easy  with 
her !  Away  with  her !  Softly,  boys ;  steady. 
Here  we  are  !  "  —  as  she  wheeled  round  into  posi- 
tion, —  as,  in  a  miraculously  short  time,  a  line  of 
hose  was  run  out,  —  as  a  spirited  fellow  carried  it 
up  half  the  height  of  the  guilty  warehouse,  —  and, 
amid  the  cheers  of  the  few  workmen,  drenched 
back  the  spiteful  flame,  and  then  turned  his  foun- 
tain on  the  roof  opposite.  Short-lived  triumph, 
indeed  !  They  had  not  been  three  minutes  in  posi- 
tion, sending  out  hose,  hither  and  thither,  to  points 
which  seemed  assailable,  when,  as  Jeff  rose  from 
his  knees,  where,  in  a  deluge  of  water,  he  had  been 
coupling  two  bits  of  leading-hose  together,  he  saw, 
what  the  foreman  did  not  see,  so  eager  was  he 
in  his  attack,  —  another  Mansard  roof,  a  whole 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          £07 

square  to  windward  of  them,  all  bannered  and  pen- 
noned  in  flame.  Jeff  simply  pointed  it  to  the 
foreman,  who  nodded  in  reply  with  a  grim,  hard 
smile,  called  in  his  hose  once  more,  coiled  it 
roughly  as  he  might ;  once  more  gave  the  order  he 
had  given  so  often,  —  "Limber  up,  boys!  No 
good  here  !  Easy  with  her  !  Walk  her  along," 
—  and  directed  the  new  station.  It  was  as  if  they 
had  been  spitting  at  the  flame. 

Jeff  was  willing  to  work,  but  not  at  such  work 
as  this.  It  was  the  foreman's  duty,  very  good  for 
the  foreman ;  but  it  was  not  his.  And,  as  Jeff 
saw  the  steamer  in  position  once  more,  he  ran  up, 
he  knew  not  why,  toward  the  Court-house,  which 
they  had  seen  towering  high  in  the  distance.  He 
left  the  line  of  fire  for  the  moment,  called  by  voices 
in  the  crowd  which  had  gathered  in  the  lighted 
square,  and  turned  to  join  them.  "Take  hold, 
gentlemen ;  take  hold !  Do  you  mean  to  have 
these  poor  fellows  roasted  alive?"  These  were 
the  first  words  that  came  to  Jeff  in  the  midst  of 
the  uproar  ;  and,  in  a  moment,  he  saw  the  position. 
There  had  been  a  theory  that  the  Court-house  was 
fire-proof.  Now,  the  basement  of  the  Court-house 
was  used  as  the  county  jail,  and  was  filled  with 
prisoners.  The  keepers,  doubtful  as  to  their  right 
to  release  them,  had  gone  to  whoever  had  that 
right,  for  some  sort  of  sign-manual.  Meanwhile, 


208  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

the  cupola  of  the  Court-house  was  in  flames ;  the 
heat  and  horror  of  the  fire  made  themselves  known 
within  stone-walls  below.  And  this  army  of 
wretches,  whose  separate  cells  had  all  been  un- 
locked by  the  retiring  wardens,  was  screaming 
within  for  freedom ;  while  the  strong  outer  doors 
were  bolted  and  locked.  They  were  all  shut  up 
together,  in  one  undistinguished  crowd.  The  cry 
of  oath  and  entreaty  could  be  distinctly  heard  by 
the  smaller  crowd  outside.  But,  in  that  smaller 
crowd,  some  man  of  sense  had  understood  the 
exigency,  and  had  voted  himself  into  command. 
The  workmen  who  were  relaying  the  pavement 
of  the  square  had  left,  on  Saturday,  a  convenient 
timber  with  which  they  adjusted  its  grade.  "  Take 
hold,  gentlemen ;  take  hold !  Do  you  mean  to 
have  them  roasted  alive  ?  "  The  sovereigns  who 
were  passing  understood  the  exigency,  and  rushed, 
at  this  command,  to  the  rescue.  Jeff  seized  the 
timber  with  the  rest,  —  thirty,  forty  of  them  had 
hold  of  it  together.  "  Back !  back !  a  few  steps 
back !  Now !  One,  two,  three  !  "  And  they  rushed 
at  the  gate,  to  be  well-nigh  overthrown  by  the 
recoil.  "  Once  more,  men !  back !  a  little  back ! 
Now !  Are  you  ready  ?  One,  two,  three  !  "  And 
once  more  their  hands  were  torn,  and  they  thrown 
back  on  each  other,  as  the  gate  refused  to  yield. 
But  their  cheerful  leader,  after  examining  its  con- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE   OTHER.          209 

dition,  reported  favorably  of  the  effect.  "  Don't 
give  it  up,  men.  Back  again  !  —  little  more  !  — 
little  more  !  Now  !  One,  two,  three  !  "  And  with 
rather  more  skill,  and  a  swing  rather  more  elastic, 
they  rushed  again  at  the  gate,  and  this  time  it  was 
certain  that  something  inside  had  given  way.  An 
answering  cheer  from  within.  Some  swings  of 
the  battering-ram,  directed  with  more  precision,  if 
with  less  force,  and  then,  in  one  instant,  the  gate 
swung  away,  Jeff  knew  not  where ;  and  one 
black  stream  of  life  poured  out  from  the  gateway, 
into  the  street,  with  howls  and  cheers  and  glad- 
some oaths,  and  scattered  to  be  seen  no  more. 
Jeff  stood  still,  almost  wondering  why  no  one 
spoke  in  articulate  words,  and,  in  a  moment,  found 
himself  alone.  He  was  the  only  man  who  had 
nowhere  to  go. 

Then  recurred  to  him  the  question  which  had 
come  to  him  so  often  since  the  young  man  passed 
him  with  the  sick  child,  —  "  Where  are  the  Grey- 
ford  girls?"  Where,  indeed?  and  how  was  one 
to  go  in  search  of  them  ?  I  have  had  just  such  a 
question  put  itself  to  me  in  a  dream,  when,  all  of 
a  sudden,  it  appeared  that  some  one  who  should 
have  been  there  was  not  there.  Was  it  a  little 
strange,  that  Jeff's  question  did  not  first  frame 
itself  into,  "  Where  is  Nettie  ?  "  though  he  had  a 
provoking  letter  from  Nettie  lying  next  his  heart, 


210  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

and  had  been  wondering  how  he  and  she  were  to 
meet  each  other,  and  whether  he  were  jealous  of 
the  Mr.  Marsh  or  the  Mr.  Denison  she  had  been 
writing  about  ?  No :  the  spontaneous  question 
was  distinctly,  not  of  one,  but  of  all :  "  Where 
are  the  Greyford  girls?"  Jane  Burgess,  whom 
all  Greyford  had  voted  to  be  his ;  Nettie,  who  had 
said  that  by  all  that  was  holy  she  was  his ;  and 
"  poor  Rachel,"  as  Jeff  always  called  Rachel 
Holley.  Jeff  felt  that  if  he  could  see  them,  or 
help  them,  that  was  what  he  was  dumped  down  in 
Chicago  at  this  moment  for;  not  to  be  serving 
ejectment  warrants  on  rascals,  or  dragging  steam- 
ers out  of  the  way  of  the  flames. 

Where  were  the  Greyford  girls  ?  Asking  him- 
self this  question,  he  rushed  into  the  throng 
again ;  hoping  against  hope  that  some  fatality 
would  answer. 


Where  were  the  Greyford  girls?  They  were 
not  together. 

At  that  moment  of  time,  if  a  somewhat  defec- 
tive chronology  can  be  relied  upon,  Jane  Burgess 
was  startled  from  an  uneasy  dream,  which  need 
not  be  described  in  a  story  which  has  to  do  with 
realities  more  terrible  than  visions.  Ned  Bardies 
was  pounding  at  her  door.  "  Jane  !  Jane  !  there  's 
a  great  fire !  Sophy  is  nervous,  and  you  had 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.    211 

better  get  up  and  dress  yourself;  it  will  comfort 
her."  By  such  weak  devices  does  the  less  con- 
fident sex  attempt,  in  times  of  peril,  to  give 
courage  to  the  stronger.  Not  that  Ned  Bardies 's 
courage  or  confidence  gave  way  all  that  day,  or 
till  this  time.  To  this  hour,  he  thinks  that  if 
a  particular  Irishman  had  thrown  a  particular 
bucket  of  water  where  he,  Ned  Bardies,  directed, 
half  Chicago  would  have  been  saved  that  day; 
and  his  own  house,  with  the  rest,  would  have 
stood  sure.  Jane  started  up.  Sure  enough,  the 
light  was  flaring  through  her  window,  and  she 
could  see  every  picture  in  her  room.  Sensible 
Jane  !  She  had  the  wit  at  that  moment  to  know 
which  frock  would  be  best  to  work  in,  and  that 
if  her  getting  up  were  for  any  good,  it  was  for 
work.  Sensible  Jane !  Frock,  shoes,  hair,  every 
thing,  was  in  order  for  work,  when  Ned  Bardies 
next  dashed  up  the  stairway.  She  flung  open  her 
door,  and  asked  what  she  was  to  do. 

Still  Ned  prophesied  smooth  things.  His  wife 
was  packing  some  trunks.  Perhaps  Jane  would 
feel  more  easy  if  she  were  ready  for  a  sudden 
removal.  For  himself,  he  was  at  that  moment 
fastening  the  step-ladder  which  led  to  the  roof. 
If  Jane  would  come  up  in  a  minute,  the  roof  \vas 
flat  at  the  very  top,  he  knew  her  head  was  steady, 
she  would  like  to  see  the  show. 


212  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  See  the  show,  indeed  ?  "  Jane's  packing  was 
finished  right  soon ;  and,  with  her  own  hands,  she 
dragged  her  heavy  trunks  into  the  passage,  and 
down  the  stairway,  to  the  front  hall.  Then  she 
ran  up  and  joined  Ned  on  his  lookout. 

Beauty  and  terror !  Such  beauty  and  such 
terror!  The  howl  of  the  flames,  the  rush  of  the 
tempest  by  her,  which  made  Jane  fear  to  step  out- 
side upon  the  roof,  and  made  her  beg  Ned  not  to 
step  so  recklessly  from  side  to  side  ;  the  leaps  from 
point  to  point,  now  of  burning  brands,  as  one 
called  them,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  now  of 
columns  of  flame,  which  seemed  to  move  wholly 
without  law,  or  defied  law;  and  above  all,  the 
heavy  canopy  of  smoke  and  flame,  white  below, 
night-black  above;  and  with  its  whirls  between, 
lighted  or  shaded  with  every  conceivable  glare  or 
cloud  of  white,  of  yellow,  of  orange,  of  scarlet,  of 
crimson,  of  purple ;  the  gamut  of  fire,  here  harmo- 
nized, there  raging  in  discord ;  the  voice  of  power 
and  the  spectacle  of  power  hushed  Jane  at  first, 
she  did  not  know  whether  in  terror  or  wonder. 
Then  she  cried,  "  Ned !  come  down,  come  down ! 
You  can  do  nothing  here  ;  come  down  for  the  chil- 
dren. Take  them  somewhere  where  they  will  be 
safe ! " 

But  Ned  declared,  as  he  supposed  with  great 
calmness,  though  Jane  could  detect  the  quickness 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    213 

of  his  speech,  that  it  was  idle  to  run  away  from  a 
fire  which  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  If  she 
would  notice  the  way  the  wind  was  blowing,  she 
would  see  that  it  had  already  passed  them.  Un- 
less the  wind  changed  its  direction,  they  must  be 
safe.  Still,  if  Jane  chose,  she  might  have  the 
children  up  and  dressed,  if  she  thought  Sophy 
would  feel  easier.  As  if  the  children  hadn't  been 
all  dressed,  to  their  India-rubbers,  long  before ! 
Ned  showed  her  the  buckets  which  he  and  his 
neighbors  had  been  arranging  on  the  roof.  He 
had  already  wetted  every  spout ;  and  indeed, 
even  in  the  heat  in  which  they  stood,  that  whole 
range  of  roof-tops  looked  as  if  it  had  been  drenched 
with  a  sudden  shower.  But  even  Ned's  voluble 
eloquence  was  checked  when  Michael's  voice,  from 
the  foot  of  the  attic  stairs,  announced  that  the 
water  had  stopped  running.  This  was  a  call  that 
did  summon  Ned  from  his  commanding  station, 
and  sent  him  downstairs,  to  find  what  faucet  had 
been  turned  wrong.  Alas !  it  was  a  faucet  that 
Ned  even  could  not  set  right.  In  one  fatal  zig-zag 
from  the  spot  where  it  was  born,  the  conflagration 
had  dashed  across  the  city  to  the  roof  of  the  great 
water-works,  which  seemed  so  far  away.  That 
roof  had  fallen  upon  those  engines  which  the  mo- 
ment before  represented  the  maximum  of  human 
power,  as  they  also,  like  Jeff  and  Jane,  were 


214  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

working  their  willing  utmost  in  their  great  duty. 
And  so  they  were  still. 

But  the  indomitable  Ned  Bardies  would  not 
quail.  "  It  isn't  as  if  we  hadn't  got  the  reser- 
voir." Again  he  conferred  with  his  neighbors, 
laid  off  his  working  parties  for  the  stairways, 
draped  his  out-houses  with  carpets  and  bookings, 
rolled  a  hogshead  here,  and  another  there,  invok- 
ing all  the  traditions  of  early  New-England  life, 
and,  as  the  night  waned,  filled  them,  to  be  in 
readiness  for  the  crisis.  No  one  within  the  range 
of  Ned's  line  of  battle  could  escape  the  contagion 
of  his  energy. 

But,  for  once  at  least,  the  doubtful  wife  was  the 
better  prophet.  She  was  preparing  for  retreat, 
while  Ned  was  preparing  for  fight.  Does  such  a 
union,  perhaps,  make  the  true  general  ?  She  com- 
pelled Michael  to  harness  the  horses  into  the  light 
wagon  which  stood  in  the  stable,  and  bring  it 
round  to  the  door.  What  did  not  she  and  the 
children  pile  into  that  wagon !  Her  father's  por- 
trait, and  Ned's  mother's ;  the  basket  of  silver- 
plate,  which  had  been  carried  upstairs  when  they 
went  to  bed ;  two  or  three  of  those  trunks  of 
hasty  packing ;  nay,  on  the  floor  of  the  little  cart, 
in  the  midst  of  all  these  accumulations,  stood 
sublime  the  easy-chair  into  which  Ned  had  always 
liked  to  fling  himself,  when  he  came  home  tired,  at 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    215 

night,  from  the  office.  The  wagon  stood  there, 
hour  after  hour;  and  from  child  to  grandmother, 
when  any  one  lighted  on  any  thing  in  the  house 
which  seemed  particularly  precious,  it  would  be 
•  carried  down,  and  by  some  mystery  crowded  into 
this  wagon.  And  still  Ned  said  it  was  nonsense ; 
that  the  fire  had  passed  them,  and  there  need  be 
no  fear. 

None  the  less  did  the  last  come.  From  a  little 
reconnoitring  tour,  he  came  rushing  back ;  with 
his  own  hands  flung  little  Carl  upon  the  seat  in 
the  wagon,  called  his  wife  and  the  others  out, 
bade  Michael  mount  and  take  the  reins,  lifted 
Retty  upon  Michael's  knees,  and  bade  him  drive 
slowly  to  the  base-ball  ground.  Sophy  and  Jane 
and  the  little  procession  followed,  arms  filled  with 
little  household  gods.  Ned  Bardies  himself  went 
back  into  his  library,  swung  round  his  neck  his  lit- 
tle travelling-bag,  looked  his  last  upon  his  happy 
home,  locked  the  frpnt  door,  put  the  key  in  his 
pocket,  and  followed  the  retreat. 

He  overtook  Sophy  in  a  moment.  "  Wilmarth's 
house  is  gone.  They  were  not  out  of  it  two 
minutes  before  it  .was  gutted.  All  that  square  is 
gone.  I  tell  you,  Sophy,  it  isn't  like  flame  :  it  is  a 
wall  of  fire,  sweeping  down,  and  nothing  stands 
against  it." 

"  Thank  God,  the  children  are  aU  safe  I "  said 


216  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Sophy.  And  brave  children  they  were.  They 
hugged  their  little  treasures  tightly,  and  stamped 
along  in  firm  order,  at  their  aunt's  or  their 
mother's  side. 

A  short  relief  at  the  lake-side.  Michael  un- 
loaded his  wagon,  and  they  made  there  their  little 
bivouac.  "  At  least,  we  are  safe  here,  where  there 
is  nothing  that  can  burn.  "  Retty  and  Carl  grow 
used  to  the  situation,  stop  asking  questions,  and 
begin  to  see  which  can  throw  stones  farthest  into 
the  lake.  And  then,  in  one  instant,  with  one 
more  change  in  the  eddy  of  the  wind,  there  is  a 
column  of  black  smoke  down  upon  us,  from  some 
pile  of  pitchy  lumber,  and  Ned  has  Carl  in  his 
arms,  and  Sophy  has  clutched  up  Retty,  and  Jane 
is  dragging  John,  as  Michael  leads  the  way ;  thick, 
pitchy  darkness  in  this  smoke,  though  we  know 
the  sun  has  risen.  Michael  leads  us  through  by- 
paths well  known  to  him.  "  This  way,  Miss  Jane  ! 
Jump  down  here,  Mrs.  Bardies !  I  have  the  boy, 
ma'am.  "  Turning  this  way,  turning  that  way ;  a 
mud-scow  here,  a  raft  of  floating  lumber  there ; 
now  a  fight  with  a  drunken  boatman,  now  running 
across  a  tottering  plank  bridge,  which  has  been 
left  for  us,  by  some  one  fleeing  just  before  us,  and 
we  are  safe  again. 

Arrived  on  the  deck  of  a  crowded  steamer,  Ned 
Bardies  eagerly  calls  his  roll,  —  "  Retty,  John,  Carl, 
grandmamma.  Thank  God,  we  are  all  here  !  " 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF   THE   OTHER.          217 

And  then  the  captain  of  the  boat  called  to 
them,  to  say  that  he  must  put  off  into  the  lake ; 
that  any  who  preferred  to  stay  on  land  must  go  on 
shore.  A  tempest  on  the  lake,  and  this  storm  of 
fire  on  the  land!  There  were  but  few  who  did 
not  prefer  the  chances  of  going  to  the  bottom,  to 
enduring  longer  trial  of  the  battle  on  the  shore. 

Ned  Bardies  determined  to  stay,  with  his  chil- 
dren. He  gave  Mike  his  choice,  whether  to  stay 
or  to  go;  and  Mike  said, —  the  faithful  fellow, 
—  "  As  ye  're  all  safe  here,  there  may  be  some  one 
else  that  needs  me.  I  think  I  '11  go  and  see.  " 


There  is  the  answer  to  Jeff  Fleming's  question, 
so  far  as  one  of  the  Greyford  girls  was  concerned ; 
and  she,  be  it  said  in  passing,  the  one  whom  the 
public  opinion  of  Greyford  had  assigned  to  him  as 
his,  own  property,  until  Nettie  Sylva  had  turned 
his  susceptible  heart  in  another  direction.  No 
great  likelihood  that  Jeff  Fleming  will  find  Jane 
Burgess  on  that  storm-tossed  steamer  in  the  offing. 
Perhaps  he  will,  —  stranger  things  have  happened 
in  this  story.  But  we  will  see. 

It  was  indeed  one  of  the  peculiar  horrors  of  the 
great  fire,  that,  in  the  flights  and  rescues,  there 
were  so  many  different  tides  of  human  life,  sweep- 
ing in  different  directions  at  the  same  moment  of 
terror,  and  each  parted  from  the  others.  The 
10 


218  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

fugitives  who  fled  to  the  lake  were  parted  from 
those  who  had  escaped  southward,  and,  yet  again, 
beyond  that  first  line  of  fire,  which  swept  across 
the  North  Side,  there  was  a  third  army  of  the 
houseless,  whose  flight  was  northward ;  an  army 
enlarged  as  every  new  block  gave  way.  In  a 
thousand  instances,  the  fathers  of  families  had,  in 
the  night,  left  their  homes,  apparently  secure,  and 
gone  down  town  to  work  for  the  safety  of  their 
property;  so  that,  when  the  crisis  of  flight  came 
for  wives  and  children,  they  were  parted  from 
those  who  were  used  to  care  for  them,  and  on 
whom  they  were  used  to  rely.  For  after  the  tun- 
nel was  rendered  useless,  and  the  bridges  gave 
away,  the  North  and  South  Sides  were  completely 
parted  from  each  other.  It  happened,  as  in  a 
thousand  other  cases  of  those  who  were  closely 
tied  in  life,  that  the  little  party  of  our  friends  was 
so  broken,  that  their  history  must  be  followed,  not 
on  one  only  of  the  lines  of  retreat,  but  upon  each 
in  turn. 

Where  were  the  Greyford  girls  ? 

As  for  Rachel  Holley,  at  the  moment  when  Jane 
and  Sophy  and  the  children  fled  from  the  house  in 
Erie  Street,  after  a  night  of  anxiety,  Rachel  Holley 
was  comfortably  asleep  in  bed,  wholly  ignorant,  of 
course,  that  half  the  town  was  in  flames.  After  a 
day  at  the  Sherman  House,  Mr.  Holley  had  brought 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHEE.    219 

Rachel  down  to  Mrs.  Worboise's,  well  out  of 
town  on  the  South  Side ;  and  that  good  woman 
was  only  too  glad  to  welcome  so  dear  a  friend  as 
Rachel  in  her  new  quarters.  Horace  was  there 
too;  and,  in  the  sight-seeing  of  the  Greyford 
party,  they  had  had  many  a  merry  rendezvous  and 
jolly  tea-drinking  at  these  hospitable  quarters. 
The  alarm  of  fire  Sunday  night  had  kept  Horace 
out ;  and  when  Rachel  went  to  bed,  he  had  not 
returned.  The  family  at  home  had  looked  at  the 
fire  from  the  window  before  going  to  bed,  but 
they  were  quite  too  far  from  the  scene  of  it  to  be 
disturbed  by  the  noise  of  the  alarm.  Good  Mrs. 
Worboise  slept  too  soundly  to  be  careful  whether 
her  "boarders"  returned  at  one  hour  of  the  night 
or  another.  Indeed,  when  she  woke,  with  her 
maids,  to  start  things  in  the  morning,  it  was  some 
little  time,  as  she  said  afterwards,  before  she 
looked  out  of  the  window.  She  looked  then 
toward  the  south;  and  she  had  been  stirring 
"nigh  half  an  hour,  zif 't  was  any  other  day," 
before  she  knew  that  there  was  not  a  man  in  her 
house,  and  that,  a  mile  away,  half  the  city  was  in 
ruins.  So  was  it  that  Rachel  slept  on.  It  need 
hardly  be  said,  that,  as  soon  as  Mrs.  Worboise  got 
any  information,  she  communicated  it  to  Rachel, 
and  the  other  ladies  of  the  family. 

Horace  had  walked  home  with  Mark  Hinsdale  on 


220  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

Sunday  evening  from  the  Sherman  House,  where 
Nettie  Sylva  and  her  father  still  remained.  Mark's 
home  was  well  out  on  the  West  Side,  as  has  been 
said.  The  young  men  were  talking  together  of 
Horace's  plans,  when  an  alarm  of  fire  was  given, 
and,  not  long  after,  they  could  distinctly  see  the 
light ;  of  which  both  of  them  spoke  with  some 
anxiety,  so  critical  had  been  the  fire  of  the  night 
before,  of  which  they  had,  just  then,  been  ex- 
amining the  ruins,  and  so  tremendous  was  this 
tempest  which  they  had  both  been  facing  as  they 
crossed  the  town.  Neither  of  these  young  men 
had  that  divine  instinct  for  running  to  "a  fire  " 
which  is  a  characteristic  of  most  young  Americans. 
But  in  a  tempest  like  this,  after  such  an  experience 
as  last  night's,  an  alarm  of  fire  in  De  Koven  Street 
was  no  trifle ;  and,  without  pause,  each  of  them 
arrayed  himself  for  work,  and  Mark  gave  notice  to 
his  landlady  that  he  had  his  key,  and  she  need  not 
sit  up  for  him.  Far  to  windward  as  they  were,  he 
had  of  course  no  fear  for  her  house ;  and  he  was 
right.  But,  as  a  little  hose-carriage  rattled  along 
and  passed  the  young  men,  both  of  them  spoke 
with  anxiety  of  the  means  of  fighting  the  enemy ; 
and  Horace  recalled  with  a  shudder  his  words  of 
the  morning,  —  "  as  if  we  all  were  on  the  edge  of 
a  common  calamity." 

They  came  to  work,  and  they  had  enough  of  it 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.     221 

before  they  were  done.  Not  with  the  engines. 
There  was  little  that  they  could  do  there.  TiU 
midnight,  and  after  midnight  indeed,  the  plucky 
little  steam  fire-engines  were  thumping  away  with 
precision  and  power ;  the  water-works  were  deliv- 
ering deluges  of  water;  and  for  the  hauling  the 
machines  to  and  fro,  the  volunteer  crowd  that  runs 
with  the  machine  gave  all  the  help  that  the  fire- 
men themselves  required,  "  dead-beat "  though 
many  of  them  were  by  the  work  of  the  night  be- 
fore. But  there  was  plenty  of  work  for  two  intel- 
ligent young  fellows  with  heads  on  their  shoulders. 
They  ran  first  to  find  Fay,  at  the  counting-room 
of  his  lumber-yard.  Fay  was  not  there,  —  no  one 
was  yet  there.  But  it  was  so  clear  that  that  whole 
yard  would  be  in  the  range  of  flame  within  ten 
minutes,  that  Horace  did  not  hesitate  to  enter  the 
counting-room  through  a  window,  open  the  outer 
door  with  a  crowbar,  and  then  pile  into  an  express- 
wagon,  which  Mark  had  brought  to  the  spot,  the 
desks  of  the  two  partners ;  indeed,  every  thing 
movable  they  could  find.  The  safe  they  would 
have  taken  too,  but  it  was  clearly  too  much  for 
the  cart.  This  was  in  the  early  hours,  when  to 
hire  an  express-wagon  was  still  a  possibility.  Murk 
sent  the  whole  in  triumph  up  to  his  own  lodgings, 
just  as  Mr.  Vanderlacken,  the  senior  clerk,  ap- 
peared. Fortunately,  he  had  the  keys  to  the  safe  ; 


222  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

and  he  and  the  young  men  made  short  work  in 
emptying  that,  and  carrying  the  contents  to  places 
supposed  to  be  places  of  security.  That  sort  of 
sudden  work,  of  new  exigency  and  new  provision, 
rapid  determination  and  action  as  rapid,  made  the 
history  of  the  night.  It  all  changed,  of  course,  as 
well  in  range  as  in  the  feeling  with  which  they 
worked,  after  the  fire  leaped  across  the  river,  when 
all  men  who  were  awake  knew  that  there  was 
now  a  question  as  to  the  existence  of  the  town. 

The  Chicago  River  is  a  sluggish  little  stream, 
formed  by  the  union  of  two  streams  about  half  a 
mile  back  from  the  lake.  After  the  union,  the  one 
river  flows  eastward  into  the  lake,  or  did,  till  the 
canal  changed  its  current.  The  two  streams,  before 
they  meet,  flow,  one  north,  one  south,  to  the  point 
of  union.  The  West  Side,  so  called,  is  west  of 
them.  Several  bridges  and  a  tunnel  unite  it  with 
the  North  Side  and  the  South  Side.  These,  in 
turn,  are  separated  from  each  other  by  the  river, 
and  united  with  each  other  again  by  bridges  and 
a  tunnel.  The  rivers,  or  river,  make  the  harbor 
of  the  city.  To  one  who  rattles  over  the  bridges 
in  a  carriage,  they  seem  narrow  as  ditches.  But 
when  you  see  two  steamers  pass  each  other,  or 
when  you  see  a  steamer  turned  round  in  the 
stream,  you  see  that  there  is  more  width  than 
you  supposed.  The  fire  having  begun  on  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    223 

West  Side,  our  friends  had  supposed  that  its 
havoc  would  at  the  least  be  checked  by  the 
river ;  bad  enough,  indeed,  that  it  should  only  be 
checked  there.  No  little  part  of  their  service  of 
that  night  had  been  on  board  vessels,  which  seemed 
to  be  in  the  line  of  fire  as  the  terrible  tempest 
drove  it  on.  It  was,  Mark  thought,  a  little  after 
midnight,  when,  as  they  were  recrossing  the  bridge, 
from  one  of  many  expeditions  to  what  then  seemed 
a  region  of  safety,  they  paused  a  moment  to  look 
northward,  and  first  felt  that  their  confidence  in 
the  river  also  was  a  delusion.  They  could  see 
then  how  the  storm,  which  seemed  higher  than 
ever,  was  flinging  fire-brands  upon  the  poor  lumber- 
sloops  in  the  river ;  nay,  once  and  again  a  burning 
brand  would  soar,  as  if  devils  were  carrying  it, 
quite  across  the  stream.  With  the  thought  of 
what  might,  nay,  must  happen,  if  the  fire  got 
lodgement  on  the  other  side,  Mark  and  Horace  at 
the  same  moment  began  to  think  of  other  duty 
than  carrying  account  books  to  a  place  of  safety ., 
"  Do  you  believe  they  know  of  this  in  Erie 
Street?"  said  Horace,  thinking  of  Jane.  And 
Mark  confessed  that  he  had  been  anxious  to  go  and 
see  if  they  were  not  frightened.  While  they  ques- 
tioned, a  sharp  flash  sprang  up,  a  very  column  of 
flame,  on  the  leeward  shore  of  the  river.  A  mo- 
ment more,  and  a  hose-carriage  came  rushing  across 


224  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

the  bridge,  and  they  heard  the  firemen  clearing  the 
way  for  the  steamer.  "  Run  up  to  Bardles's," 
said  Mark.  "  I  will  go  round  by  the  library,  and, 
if  all  is  safe  there,  I  will  join  you." 

So  Horace  crossed  back,  and  found  his  way  to 
the  Lasalle-street  tunnel ;  but  he  was  not  to  come 
to  Erie  Street  so  easily.  First  a  loyal  effort  to 
help  on  her  way  an  Irish  woman  and  three  chil- 
dren ;  then  an  adventure  with  some  terrified  horses, 
who  were  led  out  from  one  of  the  North-side 
stables,  delayed  him  longer  than  he  knew.  He 
promised  to  take  —  and  did  take  —  one  of  these 
wild  horses  to  a  private  stable  as  far  up  as  North 
Avenue,  where  it  was  thought  he  would  be  safe ; 
he  mounted  the  terrified  creature  bareback,  as  he 
had  done  more  good-natured  beasts  in  old  Grey- 
ford  days.  But  when  he  returned  from  this  knight- 
errantry  he  found  the  line  of  fire  had  crossed  to  the 
lake,  and  that  he  was  cut  off  by  it  from  Erie  Street. 
If,  as  was  perhaps  possible,  he  could  have  crossed 
there,  he  did  not  rightly  find  his  way.  He  chose  in 
preference  the  Indiana-street  bridge  ;  and,  though 
more  anxious  than  ever  about  Jane  and  her  friends, 
he  thought  his  best  way  to  reach  them  was  to  re- 
turn to  the  West  Side,  and  so  pass  round  the  west 
of  the  fire.  He  had  not  any  fear,  even  then,  of  the 
Sherman  House  and  Nettie  Sylva.  But  he  had 
thus  undertaken  a  long  journey ;  and  it  was,  as  any 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    22) 

one  will  see  who  knows  the  ground,  journey  long 
enough  to  account  for  his  failing  to  arrive  at  Erie 
Street  before  Jane  and  her  party  fled. 

Nettie  and  her  father,  meanwhile,  who  had  gone 
to  bed  early  at  the  Sherman  House,  were  not  in  the 
absolute  security  which  both  Mark  and  Horace 
imagined.  As  early  as  one  o'clock  they  were  up 
and  dressed.  The  nervous  and  careful  doctor 
himself  carried  their  trunks  downstairs.  He  had 
bidden  Nettie  put  on  her  hat  and  walking-dress, 
and  she  was  all  ready  to  follow  him.  Every  one 
assured  the  doctor  that  he  was  rather  rushing  into 
harm's  way  than  away  from  it;  but  he  had  the 
feeling  that  he  should  surely  be  safe  with  some  old 
Greyford  friends  well  up  on  Lasalle  Street.  With 
another  gentleman,  he  secured  one  of  the  heavy 
coaches  of  the  house,  and  with  their  own  hands 
they  piled  on  their  trunks,  and  piled  in  the  ladies 
of  their  party.  So  swiftly  was  the  movement 
carried  through,  that  in  ten  minutes  the  whole 
party  were  safe  at  the  hospitable  house  on  Lasalle 
Street,  which  the  doctor  had  selected  as  "  so  much 
safer  than  a  hotel." 

Alas  for  poor  human  foresight !  The  doctor  had 
run  just  in  the  line  of  the  tempest  and  of  danger. 

Not  his  party  alone,  but  perhaps  twenty  other 
people,  had  gathered  in  the  house.  A  pile  of 
10*  o 


226  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

trunks,  sheet-bundles  of  clothes,  and  other  rescued 
property,  encumbered  the  sidewalk.  Everybody 
was  made  welcome,  but  meanwhile  everybody  was 
uneasy.  The  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  house 
were  engaged  in  bringing  out  valuables,  and  their 
guests  in  packing  them,  when,  pop!  the  gas 
stopped,  and  every  one  knew  that  the  gas-works 
had  gone.  Not  that  they  needed  such  light  much. 
The  light  in  the  sky  left  few  houses  dark,  as  that 
morning  crept  along  from  midnight  to  sunrise. 
The  work  went  on,  and  none  too  fast.  One  of  the 
gentlemen  had  just  succeeded  in  securing  a  furni- 
ture-wagon, when  the  scout  at  the  corner  of  the 
square  rushed  in,  crying  that  it  was  really  the  last 
moment ;  that  every  woman  must  be  gone ;  and 
under  Mrs.  Goodhue's  lead,  the  long  cortege,  arms 
heaped  full,  took  up  the  line  of  march  for  a  house 
in  Dearborn  Street.  The  gentlemen  promised  that 
they  would  bring  the  trunks  where  they  would  be 
all  right.  And  so,  with  less  difficulty  than  might 
have  been  expected,  all  came  safe  to  Dearborn 
Street,  and  again  all  met  a  cordial  welcome,  to 
have  just  the  same  experience  again  as  a  few 
hours  passed  by.  Almost  the  same  words  describe 
it.  Nettie  had  long  since  cast  loose  from  any 
property  of  her  own.  She  had  gallantly  taken 
charge  of  a  little  portrait  of  Mrs.  Goodhue's 
mother,  —  which  was  itself  a  large  lif t  if  r  Nettie 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF   THE   OTHER.          227 

to  grapple  with,  —  and  of  a  travelling-bag  of 
Mr.  Fontenelle's,  which,  as  she  knew,  contained 
a  hundred  and  five  thousand  dollars  in  five- 
twenty  bonds.  Nettie  had  declared  to  Mrs. 
Goodhue,  that  the  portrait  should  be  as  safe 
as  the  lucre.  At  the  Gracies'  house,  she  had 
worked  as  faithfully  as  the  best.  But  when  the 
order  for  flight  came  again,  she  embraced  the  pic- 
ture, and,  by  science  known  to  herself,  kept  the 
big  bag  hanging  on  three  of  those  little  fingers,  — 
"  they  were  strong,  if  they  were  so  small,"  as  Mag- 
gie Mitchell  says,  —  and  again  they  started  for 
some  place  known  to  Mrs.  Gracie,  which  was  "  cer- 
tainly protected."  But  the  streets  were  more  en- 
cumbered here.  Nettie  got  confused,  or  some  one 
else  got  confused.  She  could  not  cross  Clark 
Street  when  she  would  nor  where  she  would ;  and 
when  she  was  across,  a  great  torrent  of  black  smoke 
compelled  her  to  stop  a  moment;  and  then  she 
could  not  see  one  of  the  party.  What  strange 
creatures  New-England  girls  are  !  The  first  thought 
to  Nettie  —  little  laughing  flirt,  as  you  think  her, 
dear  reader  —  was,  that  on  Friday  only,  she  had 
been  sitting  in  the  High  School  with  her  friend 
Miss  White,  and  had  heard  a  bright  girl  read 
from  the  second  ^Eneid,  how  Creusa  acted  when 
she  found  herself  in  just  the  same  scrape  in 
Troy. 


228  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  For  while  we  seek  the  by-ways  as  we  run, 
Careful  the  more  frequented  streets  to  shun, 
My  wife,  Creusa,  in  the  darkness  blind, 
Torn  by  some  wretched  fate,  is  left  behind. 
Perhaps  she  lost  the  narrow  path  I  found  ; 
Perhaps  she  fell,  exhausted,  on  the  ground. 
I  looked  not  back,  nor  thought  to  look  until 
We  reached  the  ancient  shrine  on  Ceres'  Hill. 


But  our  friend  Nettie  had  no  thought,  however, 
of  "  going  under  ;  "  her  only  anxiety  was  about 
Mrs.  Goodhue's  picture  ;  which,  after  all  she  had 
said,  she  would  have  died  for.  She  rushed  on 
bravely  with  the  throng,  and  was  thrown  for  a 
moment  against  the  shafts  of  a  wagon,  so  that  the 
young  man  at  the  horse's  head  apologized  to  her. 
Nettie  smiled  as  she  thanked  him  ;  and  he  recog- 
nized her,  though  she  did  not  know  him.  Her 
pretty  face  was  black  with  smoke  and  dust.  The 
tears,  forced  by  the  smoke,  were  running  help- 
lessly in  white  channels  dow,n  her  rounded  cheeks. 
There  was  but  one  attention  which,  in  that  crisis, 
the  gentleman  could  pay  her;  and  he  paid  it. 
"Miss  Sylva,  would  you  like  to  have  me  wipe 
your  eyes  ?  " 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Nettie,  as  merrily  as  she 
had  said  "  Thank  you  "  when  he  took  her  down  to 
supper  the  Wednesday  evening  before.  And  this 
true  knight,  —  whose  name  Avill  ever  be  unknown, 
—  with  his  one  disengaged  hand,  drew  a  handker- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    229 

chief  from  his  pocket,  and  wiped  the  precious 
tear-drops  from  the  prettiest  eyes  in  Chicago. 
Who  wills  may  make  a  sonnet  of  that  tale ! 
Nettie  thanked  him  again,  and  laughed  heartily 
again.  He  laughed  as  well,  —  offered  to  take  her 
parcels,  but  she  declined,  —  and  she  forged  on  her 
way,  and  he  on  his. 

Where  she  went,  she  did  not  and  does  not 
know.  Why  she  went,  she  hardly  knew.  Only, 
at  last,  she  was  all  wrong.  She  came  into  an 
empty  street ;  that  must  be  wrong !  Still  she 
hurried  through  it,  to  see  that,  right  and  left,  as 
the  square  ended,  she  was  blocked  by  fire,  or 
by  smoke  which  she  dared  not  pass.  Back  by  the 
way  she  came !  "  Yes :  this  is  right.  This  is 
the  broken  elm-tree  I  noticed.  But,  no  !  it  is  not 
right.  I  never  saw  that  hogshead  in  the  road. 
God  help  me!  What  is  right?  That  smoke  is 
too  thick  to  charge.  Back  here  ?  No  !  that  is  all 
too  far  gone.  Could  I  have  crossed  back,  and 
found  Clark  Street?  Ought  I  not  to  have  held 
by  the  wagon  ?  "  Still,  she  did  not  surrender  the 
picture.  No !  nor  did  she  lose  her  head.  The 
loneliness  was  the  worst.  How  she  got  there,  she 
did  not  know.  And  clearly,  that  street  was  wholly 
abandoned.  At  that  instant,  one  puff  of  wind 
revealed  to  her  the  retreating  line  of  wagons,  on 
one  of  the  northward  avenues.  Only  a  moment ; 


230  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

but  enough  for  Nettie.  She  sprang  into  the 
smoke  cloud,  holding .  her  breath,  and,  with  her 
eyes  shut,  plunged  on,  running  as  fast  as  she 
could  run  with  the  picture.  She  smelt  such  smoke 
as  she  never  smelt  before,  but  she  tried  not  to 
breathe.  Nor  was  this  in  vain  ;  forty  paces  of 
such  running  was  enough.  The  air  cleared  ;  she 
was  within  twenty  paces  now  of  the  wagons  ;  one 
rush  more,  and  then  the  picture-frame  struck  on 
some  corner  of  a  fence,  and  Nettie  fell,  helpless, 
and  for  one  instant  senseless  on  the  ground. 


Meanwhile,  Mark  had  found  the  Johnsonian 
Library  in  very  different  plight  from  what  he  ex- 
pected. Some  fatal  shaft  had  lighted  early  on  a 
wheelwright's  shop,  just  opposite  that  institution  ; 
and,  at  the  moment  of  Mark's  arrival,  this  shop 
was  in  flames.  What  a  pity  he  had  let  Horace 
leave  him !  for  by  this  time  there  were  few  enough 
volunteers  to  be  recruited  in  the  work  of  carrying 
out  MSS.,  medals,  and  such  other  treasures  as 
Mark  knew  were  most  valuable  of  all ;  or  to  take 
them  to  shelter,  if  in  this  storm  of  fire  there  were 
shelter.  It  was  still  early  in  the  mornin'g  ;  but  the 
people  who  were  out  and  at  work,  were  at  work 
too  eagerly  for  their  own  affairs  to  pay  much  heed 
to  medals  or  to  manuscripts.  Neither  for  love  nor 
for  money  could  Mark  find  wagoner  to  help  him, 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  TEE  OTHER.    231 

in  the  little  range  through  which  he  dared  to  try. 
Ready  money,  indeed,  he  had  none ;  having  care- 
fully left  his  watch  and  pocket-book  at  home  when 
he  and  Horace  started  ;  and  that  night  credit  was 
worthless.  Two  or  three  light  handcarts  and  a 
wheelbarrow  he  did  impress.  He  and  two  of  the 
trustees,  white-headed  old  clergymen,  and  Miss 
Baylies,  the  assistant  in  the  school  hard  by,  did 
yeoman's  work  with  these  in  the  little  time  they 
had.  But  this  was  little  enough ;  for,  within  an 
hour  after  Mark's  appearance,  the  gutters  of  the 
Johnsonian  had  caught  the  flames,  the  little  scuttle 
on  the  roof  was  on  fire,  and,  in  half  an  hour  more, 
Mark  and  his  trustees  were  driven,  beaten,  from 
the  field.  A  stately  carriage  with  a  span  of 
smooth,  high-bred  horses,  was  piled  full  of  the 
manuscripts  and  medals  ;  and  trustee  number  one, 
mounting  the  box  himself,  drove  it  triumphantly 
from  the  ruin.  Mark  and  the  other  trustees,  and 
little  Miss  Baylies  sought  other  fields  of  duty. 

No  question  where  Mark  would  go.  "  Where 
are  the  Greyford  girls  ?  "  had  been  his  question, 
even  when  he  lay  out  on  the  Johnsonian  roof  with 
a  hand-hose,  when  he  descended  into  the  Johnso- 
nian crypts  with  a  lantern.  Now  that  he  was 
free,  he  could  find  out  where  they  were,  and  this 
was  his  first  thought.  Of  course.,  the  intelligent 
reader  thinks  he  will  go  for  Jane.  Did  he  not 


232  SIX  OF  ONE   BY 

write  to  Jane  those  beautiful  sonnets  ?  Were  not 
his  letters  to  her,  all  the  summer,  so  personal? 
Yes  ;  and  yet  he  did  not  go  for  Jane.  Perhaps  he 
thought  Jane  well  balanced  enough  to  care  for  her- 
self. Perhaps  he  thought  that  that  part  of  Erie 
Street  was  in  less  danger  than  the  Sherman  House  ; 
or  perhaps  he  pretended  he  thought  this,  and 
really,  in  his  heart,  felt  that  if  any  harm  came  to 
Nettie  Sylva,  he  should  never  forgive  himself; 
that  if  Nettie  were  lost  in  this  chaos,  his  life  would 
not  be  worth  living.  For  my  part,  I  think  this 
storm  of  fire  revealed  a  great  many  people  to  them- 
selves. I  think  there  was  a  great  deal  of  time, 
while  people  were  on  the  roofs  of  houses,  or  sitting 
in  the  night-air  under  the  sky,  when  they  learned 
a  great  deal  that  nothing  else  could  have  taught 
them.  Of  this  I  am  sure  :  that  when  Mark  Hins- 
dale  saw  that  the  Johnsonian  was  one  mass  of  ruin, 
he  rushed  to  the  Sherman  House  by  the  shortest 
route  he  could  find  open.  He  never  once  thought 
of  Rachel  Holley,  whom  all  Greyford  thought  he 
ought  to  think  of ;  he  did  not  think,  more  than  a 
moment,  of  Jane  Burgess,  who  had  been  kind  to 
him  and  good  to  him  ;  he  thought  of  Nettie  Sylva, 
because  he  knew  her  life  was  the  other  half  of  his 
life,  —  that  if  he  could  save  her  from  suffering, 
that  was  what  God  had  sent  him  into  this  world 
for;  and,  unless  he  could  save  her,  it  was  not 
worth  while  for  him  to  live. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHEE.    233 

He  came  to  the  Sherman  House  long  hours  after 
Nettie  had  left  it.  It  was  standing,  though  so 
much  else  around  it  was  gone.  Its  white  walls 
were  red  with  the  reflected  light.  Mark  could  see 
smoke  starting  from  the  roof,  but"  the  building 
seemed  unchanged.  How  little  while  since  he  had 
left  Dr.  Sylva's  pleasant  parlor  in  the  corner  of 
the  fourth  story  I  He  rushed  in.  He  was  ordered 
back,  and  had  to  obey.  But  orders  went  for  little  : 
the  house  was  well-nigh  empty,  for  its  fate  was  too 
certain  ;  and  Mark  was  in  again,  and  in  the  doc- 
tor's parlor.  There  was  the  copy  of  "  Bret  Harte  " 
on  the  table,  which  she  had  read  from  last  night. 
Mark  seized  it,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  There 
were  the  rosebuds  Mrs.  Hubbard  had  sent  her. 
Mark  seized  them.  Could  it  be  that  any  chance 
had  neglected  her  and  the  doctor?  He  tried 
the  doors  from  the  parlor.  The  doctor's  room 
was  empty.  He  knocked  and  knocked  at  the 
other  door.  "  Nettie  !  Nettie  !  "  No  answer.  He 
turned  the  key,  — he  rushed  in,  to  meet  a  column 
of  smoke  which  blinded  him.  But  Mark  had  tried 
smoke  before,  that  night.  Down  on  his  knees,  he 
crept  across  the  room,  and  was  right;  for  there 
was  a  little  space  from  which  the  smoke  rose.  He 
held  his  breath  till  he  pulled  both  pillows  from  the 
bed.  Certainly  no  one  was  there.  But  could  he 
find  his  way  back  to  the  door?  He  could  not 


234  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

stand.  He  could  turn  to  the  place  where  he 
thought  it  was,  —  but  where  it  was  not.  The  door 
was  a  wash-stand.  "  I  shall  be  dead  in  ten  sec- 
onds," said  Mark  to  himself.  But  in  five  seconds 
he  had  crawled  to  the  door,  was  in  the  parlor  again, 
was  in  the  draught  of  a  broken  window,  and  was 
safe. 

He  was  downstairs  again.  A  porter  he  found 
declared  that  Dr.  Sylva  went  north:  which  was 
true.  Now  for  a  journey  north !  And  how  ? 
This  bridge  is  closed,  that  tunnel  closed :  —  the 
way  is  cut  here  and  blocked  there.  But  Mark 
did  it.  Southward,  westward,  northward,  east- 
ward, he  passed  round  the  fire.  And  then  among 
seventy-five  thousand  people,  Mark  was  looking 
in  every  blackened  face,  to  see  if  it  were  the 
doctor  or  Nettie.  If  he  met  any  man  he  ever 
saw  before,  he  asked  for  Dr.  Sylva  or  for  Nettie. 
He  rushed  down  one  square  and  another,  till  he 
met  the  line  of  fire.  He  crossed  back  and  for- 
ward through  every  street  which  took  the  line  of 
fugitives.  Church  after  church  he  tried,  where 
people  had  sought  sanctuary.  And  so  was  it,  that 
making  a  short  cut,  where  he  thought  no  one 
blocked  the  way,  he  saw  a  woman  emerge  from 
the  smoke,  heavily  burdened,  —  he  saw  her  trip, 
and  fall  upon  ihe  ground  senseless.  He  ran  to  her, 
and  lifted  her  gently,  and  wiped  her  hair  from  her 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    235 

face,   and  he   knew  he   had   Nettie   Sylva  in  his 
arms ! 


It  is  a  hard  thing  to  keep  up  the  chronology  of 
such  chaos  as  this,  in  which  few  men  looked  at 
their  watches,  and  of  which  the  chief  time-marks 
are  the  moments  when  the  water  failed,  when  the 
gas-works  gave  out,  and  when  the  sun  rose.  We 
have  still  to  tell  what  became  of  Horace  Vanzandt, 
whom  we  left  crossing  Indiana-street  bridge,  west- 
ward, to  look  for  Jane  Burgess ;  who,  as  he  hoped, 
was  half  a  mile  exactly  behind  him. 

Slow  work,  indeed,  flanking  the  sea  of  fire  on 
that  morning.  But  Horace  was  steady  as  he  was 
impetuous.  Still,  long  before  he  had  worked 
round  to  the  south  side  of  the  river,  every  bridge 
and  every  tunnel  to  the  north  side  was  impassable, 
and  every  man  he  questioned  assured  him  that  the 
part  of  Erie  Street  he  was  asking  for  had  gone. 
None  the  less  did  Horace  persevere.  A  ditch  like 
that  could  be  crossed,  if  he  had  to  swim  it !  Swim 
it  he  did  not ;  but  he  did  bribe  an  Irish  boatman 
to  carry  him  across  the  mouth  of  the  river,  —  and 
so  pressed  his  way  up  on  the  lake  shore.  Nay,  he 
came  to  the  ball  ground,  had  he  known  it,  some 
two  hours  after  Jane  and  the  children  had  left  it. 

He  stooped  down  and  picked  up  a  jumping-jack 
some  child  had  dropped  there.  Surely  he  had 
seen  the  grimace  on  that  painted  face  before ! 


236  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

It  was  madness  to  ask  each  fugitive  if  he  had 
seen  a  party  of  ladies,  with  three  small  children. 
Madness  or  not,  Horace  asked  and  asked  again, 
and  received  answers,  now  wild  and  now  coherent. 
They  sent  him  hither,  sent  him  thither  ;  but  there 
was  no  Sophy  Bardies  and  no  Jane  Burgess  to  be 
found  by  this  questioning.  Back  he  was  beaten  to 
the  river-shore  and  the  lake,  by  failure  and  by 
fire ;  and  at  last,  unwillingly,  after  trying  this 
scow  and  that  schooner,  was  fain  to  take  shelter 
himself  on  a  little  tug  that  was  putting  out  to  sea. 
Nor  was  he  relieved  here  from  the  wretchedness 
that  had  surrounded  him  on  the  shore.  Children 
without  their  mothers,  mothers  without  their  chil- 
dren, were  piled  together  on  the  little  deck.  Wa- 
ter, of  course,  the  lake  provided  them;  but  a 
little  hard-tack,  which  was  gone  before  night,  was 
all  the  edible  provision.  And  such  a  night !  She 
lay  at  anchor  in  sight  of  the  lurid,  cruel  fire.  And 
how  she  rose  and  pitched  in  the  gale.  How 
would  these  wretched,  half-clothed  children  live 
till  morning  ?  Still,  we  do  live  till  morning.  And 
then  such  wretchedness  !  "  I  am  so  hungry  !  Oh, 
dear;  I  am  so  hungry!"  The  captain  at  last 
pulled  up  his  anchor,  and  ran  down  under  the  lee 
of  one  of  the  larger  steamers.  "  For  the  love  of 
Christ,  can  you  give  these  babies  something  to 
eat?"  And  Jane  Burgess  threw  down  into  the 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    237 

tug  one  of  the  four  loaves  which  Mike's  fore- 
thought had  packed  in  the  big  basket  which  he 
never  abandoned.  And  Horace  Vanzandt,  little 
guessing  what  angel  answered  his  prayer,  caught 
the  loaf,  and,  in  a  minute  was  dividing  it  among 
these  twenty  starving  little  ones.  A  minute  more, 
and  he  had  scrambled  up  the  steamer's  side.  No  I 
It  was  not  Jane  he  found.  It  was  a  sort  of  mate, 
who  could  provide  some  blankets  for  the  women 
who  seemed  dying  in  the  engineer's  room  of  the 
little  tug  below.  Up  and  down,  back  and  forth, 
Horace  passed  on  his  work  of  mercy.  And  it  was 
not  till  he  had  seen  everybody  decently  comfort- 
able there,  that  he'  scrambled  back  upon  the 
steamer.  He  passed  aft,  where  he  saw  a  group  of 
children  lying  listlessly.  He  offered  a  little  boy 
the  grinning  jumping-jack.  "  Why,  it  is  Carl's 
jumping-jack !  See  here,  mamma ;  here  is  Carl's 
jumping-jack ! " 

And  Horace  turned,  and  Jane  turned. 

"  Dear  Horace !" 

"  My  dearest  Jane,  is  it  you  ?  " 


Where  are  the  Greyford  girls  ? 

For  Jane  and  Nettie  we  have  accounted.  Let 
us  go  back  to  Rachel,  at  good  Mrs.  Worboise's 
boarding-house. 

Rachel   soon   understood  that  she  was  on  the 


238  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

very  edge  of  one  of  the  greatest  events  in  history, 
and  was  seeing  it  almost  as  little  as  if  it  had  been 
in  Moscow.  She  could,  and  did,  run  to  the  top  of 
the  house,  and  see  a  lurid  canopy  of  smoke.  She 
could  and  did  make  her  way  up,  with  Mr.  Fay's 
assistance,  against  the  current  of  fugitives,  as  far 
almost  as  Harrison  Street,  and  saw  something  of 
the  methods  of  the  fight.  But  she  saw  the  flight 
more  than  the  fight ;  and  Mrs.  Worboise  and 
Rachel,  and  all  that  household,  instantly  under- 
stood the  emergency,  and  the  duty  next  their 
hands. 

"  My  dear  child,  this  is  sure :  they  will  need 
something  to  eat,  whatever  else  they  need,  or 
whatever  else  they  save." 

This  was  Mrs.  Worboise's  simple  statement, 
founded  on  a  profound  philosophy.  By  "they," 
the  good  soul  meant  the  human  family  in  general. 

Her  washing-boilers  were  scalded  out,  —  as  if 
they  needed  it !  —  and  as  many  hams  put  in  as 
they  would  hold.  With  white  arms  and  sturdy, 
she  mixed  self-raised  biscuits,  and  plied  that  day 
her  ovens.  Open  doors  in  that  house  that  day 
long ;  no  sign  of  flight.  No  man  nor  woman 
stopped  to  ask  a  question,  but  was  asked  to  eat, 
and  ate  to  the  full.  The  water  had  given  way ; 
but  Mrs.  Worboise  had  a  little  "nigger  boy,"  — 
as,  in  face  of  better  light,  she  obstinately  called 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.          2P>9 

him,  —  whom,  by  threats,  bribes,  and  promises, 
she  kept  plying  to  the  lake-shore  for  water ;  and 
her  old  New  York  filters  did  the  rest.  When  she 
got  a  little  ahead  with  her  bread  and  ham,  she 
devoted  her  attention  to  bedding.  I  dare  not  tell 
how  many  "  shake-downs  "  she  and  Rachel  and 
Mrs.  Plinlimmon  constructed  on  landings  and 
floors.  Mrs.  Worboise  could  have  hauled  a  steamer 
into  action  if  she  had  been  bidden;  she  could 
have  sculled  a  scow,  had  she  been  bidden ;  she 
could  have  wiped  a  maiden's  smoky  tears,  had  she 
been  bidden ;  she  could  have  lain  out  on  the  roof 
of  the  Johnsonian,  with  a  hand-hose,  had  she  been 
bidden;  she  would  have  added  emphasis  to  a 
battering-ram,  driving  in  a  prison-door,  had  she 
been  bidden.  As  it  happened,  she  was  bidden  to 
provide  for  a  stream  of  faint  and  roving  fugitives ; 
and  reverently  and  faithfully,  hopefully  and  lov- 
ingly, she  did  that  duty.  Of  course  she  did  it 
well. 

Whether  it  were  morning  or  afternoon,  I  do  not 
know ;  nor,  I  think,  did  any  of  the  parties  know. 
But,  as  the  day  passed,  Mrs.  Worboise,  standing 
on  the  door-steps,  saw  the  approach,  on  the  street, 
of  a  long  express-wagon,  crowded  with  little  girls, 
frightened  and  crying,  or  sometimes  dumb  and 
stolid  with  terror.  She  rushed  down  to  ask  where 
they  were  going. 


240  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

"  God  knows ! "  said  Jeff  Fleming  who  was  on 
the  high  seat,  carefully  driving.  "  They  are  going 
wherever  there  is  something  to  eat,  and  a  bed  for 
the  poor  things  to  lie  in." 

By  the  divine  instinct  of  his  healthy  life,  Jeff, 
who  had  sought  vainly  all  day  for  the  "  Greyford 
girls,"  had  lighted  on  these  inmates  of  the  orphan 
asylum. 

"  Why  the  little  darlings ! "  cried  the  good 
woman.  "Bring  them  in  —  bring  them  in !  We 
are  all  ready  for  them  here.  Bring  them  in."  And 
by  this  time  Rachel  and  Mrs.  Plinlimmon  were  at 
the  tail  of  the  wagon,  and  had  each  a  child  in  her 
arms. 

"  Why,  Mrs.  Worboise  !  who  sent  you  here  ?  " 

"  Why,  Mr.  Fleming  !  is  it  you  ?  " 

So  Jeff  Fleming  deposited  his  charge  with  Mrs. 
Worboise.  A  moment  more,  and  a  fellow  sover- 
eign stopped  to  ask  for  the  use  of  the  wagon  ;  and 
Jeff  let  him  have  it,  on  his  promise  to  bring  it 
back  at  nightfall.  Jeff  had  hired  it  from  he  knew 
not  who,  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  down,  on 
promise  to  return  it  next  morning  to  he  knew  not 
where.  Jeff  had  not  tasted  food  since  he  left 
Cass  Corners,  twenty-four  hours  before  ;  and  he 
was  not  sorry  to  smell  Rachel's  coffee,  nor  to  cut 
into  the  good  lady's  ham. 

"  Dear  Rachel,"  said  he,  after  the  rage  of  hun- 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    241 

ger  was  a  little  satisfied,  and  after  each  child  was 
in  bed  in  some  improvised  night-dress,  "how 
much  has  passed  since  I  saw  you !  " 

Yes,  indeed !  how  much  had  passed !  And  as 
the  afternoon  waned,  and  as  the  evening  gathered, 
and  as  they  turned  back  from  this  or  that  corner, 
how  they  two  were  revealed  to  themselves  and  to 
each  other  !  How  honest  and  brave  and  true  Jeff 
seemed  to  Rachel,  though  he  could  not  expound 
science  like  Horace,  nor  talk  sentiment  like  Mark. 
Of  course,  she  did  not  say  it  to  herself;  but  what 
a  perfect  rest  it  was  to  sit  and  talk  with  this 
hearty,  simple,  loyal  friend,  and  not  to  be  in 
terror  of  one  of  Horace's  crotchets,  or  one  of 
Mark's  flights  into  the  sky.  The  evening  passed 
on.  There  was  an  alarm  about  a  prairie  fire 
southward.  What  a  mercy  Jeff  was  here !  The 
tokens  of  rain  came  ;  and  Jeff  returned  :  all 
was  well !  And  he  ?  He  kept  wondering,  as 
Rachel  did,  where  Nettie  was ;  and  he  hoped  the 
Bardies  family  were  safe  ;  Nettie,  to  whom  he  was 
betrothed,  indeed;  and  Jane,  to  whom  he  had 
been  assigned.  Still,  he  did  not  go  again  to  look 
for  Nettie.  Rachel  wondered  why.  Perhaps  he 
knew  better  than  Rachel  did.  Anyway,  he  was 
determined,  that,  if  danger  came  that  night  to 
Rachel,  he  would  not  be  far  away. 

Nine  o'clock !  Mr.  Plinlimmon  has  come  in. 
11  f 


242  SIX  OF  ONE  BY 

They  say  it  is  all  done.  There  are  patrols  on  the 
streets.  Gen.  Sheridan  is  in  command.  The 
children  are  all  asleep  ;  but  no  one  else  wants  to 
go  to  bed.  Half-past  nine.  A  carriage  wheels  to 
the  door.  A  sharp  ring  and  knock,  and  the  door 
flies  open.  The  parlor  door,  of  course,  flies  open 
too,  and  Mark  Hinsdale  almost  lifts  Nettie  into 
the  room. 

"  Dear,  dear  Nettie !  is  it  you  ?  Lie  right  on 
the  sofa  here !  "  And  Rachel  is  caring  for  Nettie 
with  all  the  tenderness  and  sweetness  of  her  own 
lovely  life. 

"And  where  did  you  come  from,  Jeff?  Dear 
old  fellow !  how  are  you  ? "  This  from  Mark, 
without  one  thought  that  this  dear  Nettie,  whom 
all  day  long  he  had  fought  for,  worked  for,  lived 
for,  and  almost  died  for,  was  supposed  by  every- 
body to  belong  to  the  "  dear  old  fellow "  who 
stood  before  him.  Nor  do  I  know  that  Jeff 
thought  of  it  more  than  he.  The  day  had  taught 
Mark  a  great  deal.  It  had  taught  Nettie  a  great 
deal.  I  believe  Jeff  had  learned  his  lesson  too. 

How  much  they  had  to  talk  !  There  was  every 
thing  to  tell.  How  much  Mrs.  Worboise  made 
them  drink !  How  much  camphor  she  brought  for 
Nettie's  forehead,  where  the  bruise  was  a  bad  one. 
How  Nettie  made  them  laugh !  And  then,  again, 
how  she  made  them  cry !  Mrs-.  Worboise  could  do 


EALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    243 

nothing  with  them.     It  was  Mrs.  Plinlimmon  who 
appeared  at  midnight,  and  sent  them  all  to  bed. 


Tuesday  morning  they  all  slept  late.  No  wonder. 
"  Dear  children,"  said  Mrs.  Worboise ;  "  they 
shall  have  breakfast  by  themselves."  And  in  a 
little  back  parlor  they  four  met,  late  in  the  morn- 
ing. Still  so  much  to  tell !  Nettie  knew  she  must 
have  a  private  talk  with  Jeff:  she  must  tell  the 
honest  fellow  how  wicked  and  how  foolish  she  had 
been.  And  Jeff  knew  he  must  have  a  private 
talk  with  Nettie.  He  must  tell  her  that  he  could 
not,  in  honor  to  her,  marry  her.  But  Nettie  and 
Rachel  came  into  the  room  together,  as  fresh 
and  neat  as  if  there  had  never  been  any  fire.  And 
Jeff  and  Mark  were  there  before  them,  and  could 
not  ask  either  of  them  to  go  away.  And  it  was 
not  awkward,  after  all.  "  Jeff  is  so  good-natured," 
said  Nettie  to  herself.  "  He  will  not  mind,  and  I 
can  tell  him  by  and  by." 

So  they  lingered  over  the  breakfast,  as  surely  no 
other  four  in  Chicago  lingered  that  morning,  Did 
Mrs.  Worboise  guess  ?  I  do  not  know.  I  think 
she  did.  She  loved  Rachel  with  her  heart's  love. 
She  loved  Horace  too ;  and  yet,  as  she  washed  one 
little  orphan  after  another,  she  said  again  and 
again,  even  aloud  to  the  orphans,  "  She  will  do  a 


244  SIX  OF  ONE  J3T 

hundred  times  better  with  that  honest  Jeff  Flem- 
ing than  she  would  ever  do  with  Horace."  And, 
though  no  one  said  this  in  the  breakfast  room,  per- 
haps they  all  felt  it  too.  And  Nettie,  guilty  Net- 
tie, pretty  Nettie,  flirting  Nettie,  —  she  had  not 
gone  through  storm  and  fire  without  learning  what 
she  knew  well  enough  before ;  only  this  time  she 
knew  it  "  perfect."  She  knew  that  such  a  treasure 
as  the  love  and  life  of  Mark  Hinsdale  was  not  a 
treasure  to  be  fooled  with,  or  thrown  away. 

No  wonder  that  the  coffee  cooled,  and  the  break- 
fast was  long.  But  it  ended.  It  ended  when  the 
door  flew  open,  and  Jane  and  Horace  both  rushed 
in.  Jane  all  in  tears,  but  handsomer  than  ever. 
Horace,  tattered,  worn,  and  dirty,  but  happier  and 
prouder  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life. 

He  had  had  a  chance  to  tell  Jane  how  he  had 
sought  for  her  from  midnight  of  Sunday  till  sun- 
rise of  Tuesday,  —  sought  her  with  tears  and  with 
prayers. 

And  Jane  had  shown  to  him  the  one  treasure 
she  had  saved  from  Erie  Street.  It  was  the  little 
bear. 

Had  these  young  people  trusted  to  the  first  pro- 
pinquities, had  they  let  the  people  of  Greyford 
pair  them,  they  would  have  trusted  wrong :  they 
would  have  lived  for  misery. 


HALF  A  DOZEN  OF  THE  OTHER.    245 

Had  they  trusted  to  the  "propinquities"  again, 
had  they  let  the  accidents  of  life  pair  them,  they 
would  have  trusted  wrong. 

A  terrible  crisis  tore  away  all  veils,  all  etiquettes, 
all  falsehoods.  For  once  they  trusted  to  the  divine 
instincts  of  their  own  hearts  ;  and  they  are  happy 
for  this  life,  and  for  ever. 


Cambridge :  Press  of  John  Wilson  &  Son. 


ROBERTS  BROTHERS'  PUBLICATIONS. 

THE  THIEF  IN  THE  NIGHT. 

By    HARRIET    PRESCOTT    SPOFFORD, 

Author  of  "The  Amber  Gods."  "New  England  Legends,"  &c.    1  vol. 
16mo.    Price  $1.25. 


from  the  Literary  World. 

It  is  a  long  time  since  Mrs.  Spofford  has  let  loose  a  novel  upon  the  world, 
but  it  is  plain  that  her  right  hand  has  not  lost  its  cunning.  She  manipulates 
the  thunderbolts  of  rhetoric  with  the  same  easy  vehemence  that  amazed 
the  readers  of  "  The  Amber  Gods"  a  dozen  years  ago.  Yet  there  is  more 
method  in  her  thought,  and  in  her  style.  The  former  is  deeper  and  more 
intense,  and  the  latter  shows  the  chastening  influence  of  time.  ...  In 
reading  her  writings  one's  intellect  and  sensibilities  are  at  variance ;  the 
former  protesting  and  resit-ting,  and  the  latter  helpless,  but  happy  under 
the  fascinations  of  her  marvellous  words.  Blest  is  he  who  can  give  himself 
up  to  the  delights  of  her  entertainment,  and  feast  on  its  dainties  without  a 
doubt  of  their  wholesomeness,  and  without  fear  of  possible  mental  bewil- 
derment or  moral  headache. 

"  The  Thief  in  the  Night."  is.a  very  peculiar  story,  not  less  in  its  con- 
ception than  in  the  manner  of  its  execution.  It  opens  with  a  murder,  —  a 
mysterious  tragedy,  —  the  victim  of  which  lies  pale  on  his  bloody  bed,  with 
weeping  friends  about  him.  His  widow,  and  the  man  who  loves  her,  and 
whom  she  has  loved,  stand  together  looking  at  the  dead  man;  and  then  the 
author  drops  the  curtain,  to  be  raised  again  in  due  season.  The  conviction 
of  every  reader  at  the  end  of  this  scene  is  that  the  husband  has  been  slain 
by  the  wife,  for  love  of  htm  who  was  dearer  to  her.  .  .  .  This  book  will 
have  many  readers;  its  fascinations  are  undeniable;  the  author  has  no 
superior  in  our  literature  in  the  deft  manipulation  of  words,  and  this 
felicity  is  attended,  somewhat  incongruously,  it  seems,  by  a  power  of  intense 
dramatic  expression  that  gives  substantial  strength  to  her  stories. 

from  a  Regular  Correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

BOSTON,  Feb.  29.  —  The  variety  of  thieves  is  infinite.  Some  plunder 
custom-houses,  and  some  steal  hearts,  and  between  these  offences  are 
various  gradations.  The  arch  thief  of  souls  is  not  the  only  one  who  comes 
to  us  in  the  guise  of  an  angel  of  light.  A  very  captivating  thief,  indeed,  was 
the  one  who  last  night  robbed  me  alike  of  sleep  and  ennui,  —  "  A  Thief  in 
the  Night;  "  for  that  is  the  quaint  title  of  a  book  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Prescott 
Spotlbrd,  a  new  and  really  wonderful  romance,  which  Roberts  Brothers 
are  about  to  publish.  The  reader  does  not  willingly  lay  it  down  between 
commencement  and  finis.  .  .  .  There  is  no  break  in  the  breathless  interest ; 
no  trace  of  weariness  or  flagging  anywhere;  no  place  where  it  serins  to 
you  that  the  wonderful  story  which  holds  you  like  the  eye  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  could  have  known  a  pause.  .  .  .  The  whole  interest  is  concentrated 
in  three  strong  human  souls,  brought  out  with  lights  and  shades  as  vivid 
as  Rembrandt  used  in  his  pictures,  —  souls  which  terribly  suffered  and 
sinned,  but  with  the  likeness  of  the  Divine  in  them  still.  It  is  not  un- 
common, in  books  at  least,  to  marry  the  wrong  man,  thinking  him  to  be 
the  right  one.  Catherine  made  the  less  common  mistake  of  marrying  the 
right  man,  believing  him  to  be  the  wrong  one;  and  out  of  this  miscon- 
ception grows  the  tragedy  of  the  tale. 

Sold  everywhere.     Mailed  postpaid  by  the  Publishers, 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  BOSTON. 


MESSRS.  ROBERTS  BROTHERS'  PUBLICATIONS. 

THE    To-MoRROw    OF    DEATH  ; 

OR, 

THE    FUTURE    LIFE    ACCORDING 
TO    SCIENCE. 

By    LOUIS    FIGUIER. 

TRANSLATED  FROM  THB  FRENCH,  BY  S.  R.  CROCKER,     i  vol.  i6mo.     $1.75. 


From  the  Literary  World. 

As  its  striking,  if  somewhat  sensational  title  indicates,  the  book  deals  with  the 
question  of  the  future  life,  and  purports  to  present  "  a  complete  theory  of  Nature, 
a  true  philosophy  of  the  Universe."  It  is  based  on  the  ascertained  facts  of  science 
which  the  author  marshals  in  such  a  multitude,  and  with  such  skill,  as  must  com- 
mand the  admiration  of  those  who  dismiss  his  theory  with  a  sneer.  We  doubt  if 
the  marvels  of  astronomy  have  ever  had  so  impressive  a  presentation  in  popular 
form  as  they  have  here.  .  .  . 

The  opening  chapters  of  the  book  treat  of  the  three  elements  which  compose 
man,  —  body,  soul,  and  -ife.  The  first  is  not  destroyed  by  death,  but  simply  changes 
its  form  ;  the  last  is  a  force,  like  light  and  heat,  —  a  mere  state  of  bodies ;  the  soul 
is  indestructible  and  immortal.  After  death,  according  to  M.  Figuier,  the  soul  be- 
comes incarnated  in  a  new  body,  and  makes  part  of  a  new  being  next  superior  to 
man  in  the  scale  of  living  existences,  —  the  superhuman.  This  being  lives  in  the 
fc'.her  which  surrounds  the  earth  and  the  other  planets,  where,  endowed  with  senses 
and  faculties  like  ours,  infinitely  improved,  and  many  others  that  we  know  nothing 
of,  he  leads  a  life  whose  spiritual  delights  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  imagine.  .  .  . 
Those  who  enjoy  speculations  about  the  future  life  will  find  in  this  book  fresh  and 
pleasant  food  for  their  imaginations ;  and,  to  those  who  delight  in  the  revelations 
of  science  as  to  the  mysteries  that  obscure  the  origin  and  the  destiny  of  man,  these 
pages  offer  a  gallery  of  novel  and  really  marvellous  views?~^Ve  may,  perhaps,  ex- 
press our  opinion  of  "The  To-Morrow  of  Death  "  a^^nce  comprehensively  and 
concisely,  by  saying  that  to  every  mind  that  welcomeWight  on  these  grave  ques- 
tions, from  whatever  quarter  and  in  whatever  shape  it  may  come,  regardless  of 
precedents  and  authorities,  this  work  will  yield  exquisite  pleasure.  It  will  shock 
lome  readers,  and  amaze  many ;  but  it  will  fascinate  and  impress  all. 


Sold  everywhere.     Matted,  post-paid,  by  the  Publisher^  \ 

ROBERTS    BROTHERS,  BOSTON 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


AUG  1 3  1993 
AC  MA 


005  846  3 


«  •••  c<r.  cc-'*3£j>.  :<::«PO4 


